welcome to my skopje travel guide
it's a great city to come explore it's cheap great value for money
have you checked my north macedonia video yet if not this is the link please do check it because it
has tons of information that's very helpful before you plan your visit so click up now hello from
beautiful north macedonia i just landed in skopje it was barely five minutes ago and i already love
this place it's so nice and green like the rest of the balkans this is actually my favorite
part of the entire world i love balkans so i got off the plane it was really easy to go through
immigration if you want more information on visa you can check my video on everything macedonia
and then i just got the bag if you have a drone you must declare it it's really important because
i do and i did and now i'm going to the city center the airport is very nice and new um it has
a little shop where you can buy a sim card but it was close i'm gonna do that from the city center
there are atms and you can i just withdrew some money and this is the bus that takes me to
the center of skopje so let's go explore skopje the beautiful capital of north macedonia i've
heard it's a bit over the top with the statues so i'm really excited already let's go
it took barely 20 to 25 minutes in the shuttle and i am in the city center
and it looks quite nice already so i'm gonna go buy myself a sim card because the shop at
the airport was closed and then go check my hotel and then go to a little adventure
because it's sunday today so i want to go and
explore this place it's like a half day trip not gonna tell you what it is let's go and find out
i stayed in the luxury skopje apartments which were amazing especially the view i
got was spectacular and a massive thank you to ivan for being so amazing and helpful
i'm heading to the vodno mountain and the millennium cross
it was a fun half day thing and if you want to see more details on how to do it
you should definitely check out my video about vodno mountain and the matka canyon
it was an interesting day i am really tired now i woke up at 6am by the way so i will see
you guys in the morning and we get to explore a little bit more of skopje have a good night
good morning from skopje so remember i was here yesterday on this cross
and it's a beautiful day and look at the view from up here it is gorgeous you can
see all the way to the ottoman side of the city so i'm gonna go get some breakfast and
then we'll start exploring this beautiful city and see what else we can see here
so it turns out that skopje is not a city for breakfast because all the restaurants told me
that the kitchens open at 10 o'clock who eats breakfast at 10 o'clock on a working day
so i'm gonna go get something from the bakery and start the tour then
this is the old bazaar of skopje and this is the largest in the whole of balkans
only second to the grand bazaar of istanbul while this was not the most populated city
skopje actually gathered a big bazaar and some caravan sarai
because it was at the crossroads and people from different directions used to come and stay here
even pictures of people staying here with their camels so it's quite interesting a great thing
to walk around and i'm gonna show you something interesting which i've never seen before let's go
honestly the best way to explore the old bazaar is to actually get lost in a street and
that's exactly what i did you get to see so many different things that you wouldn't anywhere else
a lot of gold a lot of bridal shopping
a lot of traditional stuff but also places that have cute bars restaurants etc
there are two hammams in skopje this is one of them but they're not functioning hammam
they're actually exhibition spaces for art now
i'm sitting in the courtyard of caravan sarai with two really cute cats who are not really
bothered at all so this is part of the old bazaar and since there were you know a lot of movement
from around the place this was sort of the motel in older times the caravan sarai were used you
know people would come here they would park their donkey their horse their camel whatever have you
and then they would just store their goods on the lower floor and then upper floor was used
to house the people and then they would sit in the you know the central courtyard tell stories talk
about politics whatever and remember i told you a little bit about the tolerance in the society here
so i find this really interesting because if you come here today on the top floor
on the three sides is a madrasah where they teach quran and islamic studies to young girls
mostly albanian families but on the fourth side this is a night club and
it's actually quite a few nights where it's actually a gay and lesbian nightclub so
they i like how they make it work here it's so nice i i mean it's a
contradiction but it's an amazing one so maybe a lesson to be learned from skopje
this is the second hamam that i was referring to earlier and this is in the beginning of the old
bazaar area when you come from the stone bridge now i find this really interesting because this
obviously was built during the ottoman turkish era and then you have two other buildings in the same
space this is the national philharmonic orchestra and this is the brutalist national opera and
ballet and these three buildings together create such an interesting space in i mean skopje keeps
impressing this is really interesting by the way this is not a functioning hammam either it's an
exhibition space and an art gallery now so on normal days you can come and visit it
you can totally drink tap water in skopje in most of macedonia no need to buy any bottled water
i'm standing on the old bridge of the stone bridge of skopje and this is one of the symbols of the
entire city but i'm going to show you the bridge in a minute what i want to talk to you about
is that impressive looking wall over there that is the skopje castle and that was built initially
quite some time ago by justinian emperor justinian and then it was rebuilt by the ottoman turks sadly
there was an earthquake in 1963 that was of magnitude 9 and that destroyed most of skopje
that also included pretty much every standing building inside the castle
so while it is going through some archaeological research there's no proper buildings inside
yes you can go for a stroll but that's pretty much it don't expect a lot
i am sitting in the compound of mustafa pasha mosque it has a beautiful rose garden and a tomb
and the mosque is from 1492 15th century it is a renovated mosque that is still functioning so
you can come here to pray and it has a beautiful rather simple but very elegant architecture and
style inside but beyond that what i really like about north macedonia is there's quite a huge
albanian population here and there are some tensions but from what i've gathered so far
people really like each other and despite what the politicians say and there are
you know tussles here and there people do like to you know live together and in a city like skopje
hearing the bells of the churches as well as the call of prayer from mosques it's not uncommon
it's really refreshing in a world today where we just don't tolerate things i find it really nice
so let me tell you a little bit about skopje yes it's the capital of north macedonia and it
is the largest city actually half of the country's population lives in skopje it's only two million
people and skopje has more than one million so interesting eh it's a great city to come explore
it's cheap it's great value for money it's tons to do around um it's it's great to explore there's
tons and tons and tons of statues larger than life in all directions they're bridges some really
quirky things if you don't trust me i'm gonna show you some of them so let's start with the first one
nope i'm not in paris all of a sudden this is still macedonia or macedonia as they say here
so this is the victory arch and it's quite recent it's nothing to do with you know roman times it's
part of the project to beautify the city center to make it more appealing to locals and tourists both
so we have to go from this arch to get to see the most famous macadonian let's go
i am in macedonia square and this place is huge it has tons of statues including my
favorite gay icon from history alexander the great or alexander macedonian as they know him
here was he macedonian yes was he from here no the current north macedonia is not the entire area of
the macedonian empire and he was from pilla which is located in northern greece in a province named
drumroll macedonia crazy isn't it so greece sort of made them change their name to north macedonia
does anyone care really outside greece and macedonia i don't know i don't think so but
the people here are not happy about it so it's crazy but what can you do
equally gorgeous and very lively at night
i'm standing in front of the house dedicated to one of the most famous
residents of north macedonia and no it's not that gay guy
i'm referring to her mother teresa so she used to live in skopje up until the age of 18 and then she
moved out to dublin and then later went on to india and became mother teresa but she didn't
used to live here she used to live she used to live here right between the victory arch
and macedonia square obviously none of this was here and the area was rearranged during
the socialist period and she came back once to plant this tree in the memory of her family
this is the macedonian parliament and this is a statue of prometheus it's really warm today
which means we can spend time in matka canyon right
it is my last day and i've explored quite a lot so it's time to chill a little bit and
i'm heading to the matka canyon again if you want to see how to do these two activities you
should check out my video it's quite a fun thing to do and you will get more information there
this is all from skopje my friends i will see you in the next video until then
you have a beautiful day ahead and don't forget to check out my other videos from north macedonia bye