Skopje: city of statues
North Macedonia's capital city is a perfect weekend break
When I’m not writing, I’m usually travelling. One of our favourite places to visit for a weekend break from the UK is Skopje in North Macedonia. We tend to fly out on Thursday, and return on Monday with WizzAir.
If you’re looking for a city break that won’t inflict too much damage to your bank account, I thoroughly recommend the city. We stay in a well-equipped Airbnb apartment owned by friends that has views of both mountains in the distance and the city. The latter is a treat of coloured lights at night.
What is really fascinating about Skopje is its obsession with statues. They are everywhere. Given the internet suggests there are 284 of them this is no exaggeration.
My favourite is this statue of a female figure who, to my imagination, appears to be a Celtic-style priestess defiantly looking up at the heavens in prayer. She is magnificent and one of relatively few female figures in the city centre. (See centre of the image below).
Statues of Alexander the Great take centre stage, including the one of him riding a rearing horse (left of image) and another in which he is waving a fist in the direction of Greece (right of image). I think the right-hand image which I downloaded from Pixabay required some clever work with the angle of the camera since the mother and child figures are from a large fountain some metres away from the Alexander figure.
We fell in love with the lions at the base of the rearing horse statue on our first visit, and spent several months trying to purchase something similar, albeit smaller, for our home. We eventually tracked down a craftsman in a village near Leicester and purchased a pair of lions, one that guards our front door and one for our back garden (see below).
Skopje is also home to an excellent jazz festival in October provided you like the avant garde end of the musical spectrum. Sadly we’ve only managed to attend twice but we do hope to do so again in the future.
The city centre is relatively compact, and easy to get around on foot. One side of the river is home to the old town with narrow streets lined with jewellery shops, leather goods and fabulous evening gowns. Prepare your eyes for sequins and bling. Looming above the city is an ancient fort which affords excellent views over the city.
If you get tired of the statues a visit to the birthplace of Mother Theresa and the nearby museum is well-worth a visit. For art lovers the old bath house now hosts exhibitions of sculpture and paintings inside its fascinating interior.
After walking thousands of steps the good news is that there are lots of places to get a good meal. Cheese, meat, excellent bread and the tastiest tomatoes and cucumbers await at prices that won’t break the budget. Macedonia also produces some very good wine.
So if you’ve got a weekend to spare and the cash for a value-for-money return flight book a date in the diary and visit. Skopje will not disappoint.