Monday, 29 March 2010

 

Skopje (MK)

Total: 0 km

 

 

The next morning, I awoke fresh and alert and ready to start a new and exciting day and … ouch, that hurt. I tried to move my hand, but found that I couldn't. I must have slept the whole night with my wrist bent at a really unhealthy angle. Silly me. Well, it would probably stop hurting in a minute or two. It didn't.

 

Refusing to have my good spirits tampered by this uncooperative body of mine, I simply ignored my right hand and went downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast buffet wasn't huge, but they offered a choice of cornflakes, toast, jam, ham, cheese and yoghurt. Sonia decided on a croissant. One cheerful bite later, she pulled a funny face: “There's something in it,” she announced unhappily. I looked up from my cornflakes. What could she mean? A lock from the baker's head? A creepy crawly with a taste for French pastry? No, nothing of the kind. Just an odd filling of ham and cheese. This appears to be a Balkan fad: they seem to think that dough on its own just feels too lonely. So they throw in some cheese and ham for good company. A bit like the Italian and their pizza. In any case, we kept running into these ham-and-cheese croissants during our holiday.

 

I grinned commiseratingly at my hapless sister and slurped my smoke-and-nailpolish-free coffee. The first morning on the Balkans without a coffee-disappointment of some sort. Life was good. :)

 

After breakfast, we headed out into the sun. We would be spending another night at this hotel, so we had all the time in the world to leisurely explore the Macedonian capital. First, we headed back towards Macedonia Square. Yesterday evening we had walked around the southern, more modern part of Skopje. Today, we wanted to see the historical part of the city on the northern bank of the Vardar. That's also where most of the Albanian-speaking population of Skopje live.

 

We crossed the Stone Bridge and looked for the best way up to the fortress. There seemed to be two options: either a very busy, winding main road with no visible pedestrian walkway, or a worn-down old stairway. We chose the direct route and started to climb the stairs. They turned out even more crumbling and overgrown than we had thought at first. In fact, they didn't look like they were much used anymore. Gingerly putting one foot in front of the other while the sun burnt mercilessly down on us, we had all sorts of queasy thoughts buzzing through our brain: why were these stairs in such disrepair? Could it have something to do with the unrests that had spread over Macedonia in the early 2000s? My nerve-endings kept connecting to the word “landmines”. Don't be stupid, I chided myself. Land-mines might be an issue in rural Bosnia and Croatia, but not down here. This is a city, stupid. Where would the mine be hiding, under the asphalt? Nestled under a dandelion? Must be one hell of a clever micro-mine.

 

Finally we reached the top of the stairs and looked up at the fortress walls towering over us. Impressive. Unfortunately, the curvy street with cars and trucks whizzing along it was just as impressive. And it lay right between us and the fortress. The pedestrian walkway was on the other side of the street as well, so we had no choice but to cross. What a stupid idea, building stairs that lead straight onto a busy street. No wonder no-one ever used them.

 

We waited for a gap in the traffic flow and sprinted across the street. Unimpressed, a car flew around the corner, milliseconds after we'd reached the safety of the walkway. Now this had been a much more real threat than any urban landmines. But you only fear what you don't know so the speeding cars left us unfazed. We trudged up towards the fortress entrance. Here, we met several groups of tourists. Had they all come up over “our” stairs as well? Somehow, I doubted it. The idea slowly formed in my head that there must be some other way up that we had somehow missed.

 

The fortress was impressive. It was partly destroyed during the 1963 earthquake, but in recent years it has been beautifully restored and excavations are ongoing. The view from the fortress walls was just stunning. Below us lay a bustling, modern city with high-rises, parks and a large stadium. To the south, the horizon was lined by a snow-capped mountain range sparkling under a perfect blue sky. On the other side of the fortress lay the old part of Skopje with its bazaars, minaretts and red-roofed homes huddled together in a network of tiny cobblestoned streets. Over it all flew the ubiquitous Macedonian flag, its cheerful yellow sun reflecting the brightness of the day all around us.

 

After we had our fill of old stones, we walked in the direction of the historical centre. Here, the buildings looked much more oriental. We spotted a mosque with a high minarett and identified it on our map as Mustafa Pasha mosque. The gate to the building was locked, though. We peeped through the iron railing and spotted some workers. It looked like the site was in the process of being restored, so we ambled on.

 

The next item on our agenda was the caravanserai. According to our travel guide, the three main buildings in every oriental city were the mosque, where people went to pray, the caravanserai, which was sort of an inn for travelling merchants, and the hammam or public bathhouse. The Skopje caravanserai is called Kuršumli An and was, always according to our book, located right next to this mosque. We looked all around. Where? The main street didn't look very promising, so we turned down a narrow alleyway that seemed to lead around the mosque. The emphasis being on “seemed”, as it actually lead us quickly down into a maze of criss-crossing back-alleys. We stumbled along uneven cobblestones, the houses so close together that they blocked out any sunlight. Around us, people went about their daily business, gossiping on their front porch or piling up merchandise in front of tiny workshops. This couldn't be right. Or could it?

 

We turned a corner and there it was: a large square, a bit overgrown at places and the pavement had seen better days too, but the large building lining the place to the right looked exactly like the picture in our book: Kuršumli An. We had found the caravanserai! We moved closer. Oh. It didn't look very open, either. There was no-one in sight, so we took a peek around. The inner yard looked like the cloister of a Catholic monastery, with a beautiful stone arcade all around the central court. Our book informed us that it is used as a lapidarium for the near-by museum. And indeed, we saw several stone plaques and statues arranged under the arcade.

 

We felt adventurous and decided try out another small alley. This one led us to a quaint old shopping street. We spotted an ice cream parlor and soon we were on our way to new explorations, licking our stracciatella scoops with relish. We turned another corner and the scene became a lot busier. We walked along the cobblestoned street, looking right and left into shop windows. If ever there was a jewellers' lane, this must be it. To say that every second shop was a jewellery store would be an understatement. Gold and silver trinkets, rings, necklaces, bracelets, watches to your heart's desire. Who on earth would buy all these things? What a huge demand can there possibly be for such things, even in a relatively large city, to justify such a mass of shops, all selling the same expensive merchandise?

 

We didn't find an answer to this puzzle, but instead we found a huge bazaar, or street-market. As in Niš, the vendors weren't the least bit aggressive in their marketing strategies. You could actually look at things without people harassing you into buying. Also, the people in this bustling place, arguably the heart of the Muslim community of Skopje, didn't look nearly as “oriental” as I had imagined. We didn't see any white Albanian caps on the men's heads, and only a few women wore headscarves and none of them were covering their face.

 

But the hustle and bustle of the market was tiring nevertheless, and soon we sought refuge on the less crowded main street, Krste Misirkov boulevard. With its high, modern glass buildings, banks and the usual highstreet stores, this street had a distincly non-historical, 21st century feel to it. By now we were really thirsty and looking for some refreshments. At the corner of Goce Delčev and Krste Misirkov boulevards, we spotted the aptly named Fontana café with a really nice terrace outside. What a perfect opportunity to give our tired feet some reprieve, rehydrate our parched tongues and – cultivate our very first sunburn for this year.

 

Duely bronzed, we walked with renewed vigour toward the near-by university. I love to mingle among students on university campuses. To me, these places somehow have the same titillating feel all over the world. We followed a group of students into the main courtyard, where I posed in front of a statue of Cyril and Methodius. These two monks from Thessaloniki are known as the Apostles of the Slavs. In the 9th century, they invented the Cyrillic alphabet at the University of Ohrid in western Macedonia. Skopje University is named after them.

 

We visited the philosophical faculty which reminded us a lot of our former university in Düsseldorf but then, as I said, these buildings have the same vibe everywhere. In the campus parking lot, we saw a lot of old Yugos. Here as everywhere, students are notoriously short of money!

 

Across the street from the university we spotted a post office. We had still not found any postcards – like Niš, Skopje doesn't seem to cater to this very basic touristic need – and so we resolved to try our luck in there. The post-office was a bit odd. The entrance was guarded by armed security people and they made you step through a scanner to enter the building. We met this high security environment with as non-threatening a face as possible, no doubt looking highly suspicious in the process. A look into the main hall told us that this building was not of the postcard-selling kind and we made a quick retreat. Back on the street, we took a deep breath, shook off this strange experience and continued our exploration of Skopje.

 

Not far from the post-office still on Goce Delčev boulevard, we found the university library. Interesting. We decided to have a quick peek inside. We pushed the entrance door open and found ourselves face-to-face with another door. This one needed a card to open, which we obviously didn't have. There was a lady sitting at the reception and we explained in our best Macedenglish that we wanted to have a look around the library. Her puzzled face told us that she thought this quite an odd request, but she buzzed us in anyway. The entrance hall had a funny 70s feel to it. In a corner stood several display cases. Ah, an exhibition. Neat. We approached to have a look. The first glass case contained about half a dozen books, closed, all with the same non-descript cover. We tried to decipher the Cyrillic titles. Probably some local authors. We moved on to the next display case. More books with the same unicolour cover, but different titles. There seemed to be a system to this. And indeed, all the other cases were stocked in a similiar fashion. Working in a literary archive myself, I've often lamented that our exhibitions are, by its very bookish nature, less creative than those of history or nature museums. But Skopje Library has elevated the blatantly boring book exhibition to a whole new level. Tearing my eyes from the fascinatingly monotonous exhibits, I noticed another quaint antiquity: rows of card catalogues. Probably every library and university has those, forgotten remnants of a less electronic age, when books were more than a mouse-click away. Other than this, there was nothing else to see in the entrance hall and we didn't feel like venturing further into the library. So we thanked the receptionist and headed back out.

 

Our next attraction on the map was the old Turkish hammam of Daut Pasha, which, like the mosque and the caravanserai, was supposed to have been turned into a museum. Again, we stood before closed doors. A plaque informed us that the museum was indeed open to the public, but closed on Mondays. Being already quite tired, we didn't mind too much and walked on.

 

We clambered up to a busy pedestrian overpass that brought us back to the historical part of Skopje. To our left loomed the fortress, behind us the old Stone Bridge. Wait a minute! Wasn't this the exact same spot where we had started out this morning? Yes, there they were, the crumbling old stairs, only meters away from this new and efficient overpass. No wonder no-one had given “our” stairs a second glance. On the bridge we also finally found a little kiosk that sold postcards.

 

The last tourist item on our agenda was the monument to Goce Delčev. He was one of the leaders of the Macedonian independence movement in the early 20th century. He died in a skirmish with Turkish troops, just before the Macedonian uprising against the Ottoman Empire in 1903. His tomb can be visited in the Orthodox church Sveti Spas in Skopje. The church lies on a little hill in the old part of town, so we weaved again in and out of small alley-ways and finally clambered up the steps to the church. By now we were getting a feel for the historical part of Skopje and found the way easily enough.

 

Sveti Spas is a tiny little church with a peaceful inner courtyard in which stands the tomb of Goce Delčev. We read its inscription in Cyrillic and directed our steps towards the adjacent museum about the revolutionary. The door to the place stood open, but a friendly young man informed us that, sadly, the museum was closed for the day. Monday is definitely not a good day to visit this capital! Looking on the bright side, we were by now so tired and thirsty that the café outside the church looked a lot more tempting than the museum anyway.

 

We sat down on the wooden benches on the terrace outside. The bartender (or was it the owner?) of the place was a dynamic young man in a heavy metal T-shirt. The songs playing unobtrusively from the loudspeakers confirmed his musical tastes. Definitely a welcoming place. But, as everywhere in Macedonia and Albania, the music wasn't too loud. I had read horror stories about loud music blaring out deep into the night, but we didn't experience anything of the kind. On the contrary, the background music stayed in the background, unlike in a lot of Luxembourgish restaurants, where you literally have to scream against a tidal wave of sound. The Southern Slavs and Albanians also seem to be very fond of 80s rock music, and I can definitely relate to that. So we were sitting on the terrace, enjoying the view over the old town and Sonia was writing postcards. My hand still hurt, so that I barely managed to put my name on it. What lucky coincidence that I didn't have to do any driving today!

 

We sipped our Coke and enjoyed the calm and quiet. Birds chirped, further down people went about their daily chores, but up here we had the place to ourselves. We had almost finished our drink, when we spotted several people stepping out of Sveti Spas. We eyed them curiously. One after the other filed out of the inner courtyard, the men dressed in expensive-looking business suits, the women adorned in equally smart attire. In the end, a party of at least twenty people had gathered in front of our terrace. No wonder the museum was closed. With all these people inside, the place must have been filled to the brim! The woman who seemed to be in charge led her flock towards “our” benches and in no time at all every table was occupied. What a babble and chatter! And all of them seemed to speak English. Our quiet little restaurant awoke from its slumber, busy waiters rushed out with platters of deliciously smelling food, crockery and glasses clattered, and we declared defeat. With the old adage “three's a crowd and four you're dead” we left the place to the Brits and wandered on.

 

Soon, we made our way back over the Vardar. We were looking for a post-office to buy some stamps. An interesting building just west of Macedonia square which we had noticed from the fortress for its unusual roof turned out to be a post-office. And what a difference to the one we had entered earlier! No armed guards and scanners here, just a bright, friendly hall with wonderful decorations on the ceiling. We were the only customers and quickly completed the transaction in our usual Macedenglish sign-language. A note to the traveller: the postcards only arrived at home after two weeks, so be patient!

 

Before returning to Macedonia square, we made a quick trip back to Sveti Kliment Ohridski. By daylight, it was even more imposing and beautiful. Luckily, there was no church service and we entered, for the very first time in my life, an Orthodox church.

 

Unlike in a Roman Catholic church, there was no restricted area for the altar. You could freely walk all around the interior. The walls were decorated with the most beautiful images of saints. It was very interesting to see the icons up close. The interior of the church was cool and quiet, and apart from us there were only a couple of other tourists. Then a woman came in. She knelt before each saint in turn and devoutly kissed the icons. As with every display of religious fervour, I felt slighty uncomfortable to witness this, but she had after all more of a right to be in this church than me, so I forced myself not to gawp at her.

 

In the evening, we returned to the excellent Pelister restaurant on Macedonia Square. The place was fully packed, but we were lucky enough to find a free table. I decided on a speciality of the house, a sort of Penne arrabbiata. The waitress congratulated me on my choice, apparently it was her favourite as well. The penne revealed themselves to be very good, but also very arrabbiata. It tasted excellent, as long as you didn't try to breathe in at the same time. An extra hot dose of chili forced itself down into my lungs. I felt like I was suffocating. Our little waitress noticed my plight and flew to the rescue. In no time at all I had a blissfully cold glass of water in my hand. Pewh, that felt better. We had a laugh and resumed our excellent meal. No wonder this fiery pasta was a specialty of the house – after all, as we had found out during the last one and a half days, the city of Skopje was really hot.