Hi all for the final time on our adventure,
We had a bit of a sleep in today and got up at leisure, which was nice after the crazy pace of the tour. Then we went walking for a couple of hours before we had to go to the airport.
We went inside a number of churches we saw on the walking tour yesterday. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral was very dimly lit inside with frescoes that are in need of a restoration. They were beautiful but fading away.
Then we went to the Church of St George, which amazingly was built in the 4th century AD. Some of it has been restored, but there are still some original bricks as well. Incredible!
Next we went to the underground ruins of the Roman town that stood here called Serdica. Some of these were uncovered in 1966 when one of the many underpasses here were being dug out. The ruins were from the 2nd century AD. More were then found as I mentioned yesterday when the Serdica train station was being built in 2010-2012. We walked through and saw where an early Christian basilicas, thermal baths, six large buildings and a late medieval church all were, and some of their ruins. In total the ruins cover an area of 9000 square kilometres. We walked down some main streets with original stones as well. We thought it interesting that many of these ruins are exposed to the elements, which probably means eventually they will erode away. It’s unusual to not have them covered with glass or a roof built over the top. Some even included mosaic floors that were not in good shape.
Next we went to the National Baths, a beautiful colourful building built in 1906 that our walking tour didn’t make it to yesterday due to a party being on. Here we ran into the 10am free walking tour so listened in to their explanation about the building. Before houses had their own bathrooms, people came here to bathe and stay hygienic. Once houses started to have their own bathrooms, it all became about socialisation. People came here to bathe and find out the latest news from friends and family. It was completely abandoned during the communist period and became very run down, but was restored to its former glory in 2002 and part of the building is now open as a museum. The guide said she hopes in the future they reopen some of the baths here as well.
We then went into the central market and bought some lunch at a bakery, before having a look inside the Jewish synagogue. Then we completed our “Claire and Jenny end of European adventure” tradition - we went to the Lindt shop. We hadn’t expected there to be one here so it was a nice surprise! We had 11.40 leve left, and we scooped up 11.86 worth of Lindt balls. The man behind the counter saw us counting all our coins and told us not to worry, we could have the last ball even though we didn’t have quite enough money. Yay for plane snacks!!
We checked out of our hotel and caught the metro for 12 stops from Serdica to the airport and our flight leaves in a few hours via Dubai. We will be back in Melbourne at 10pm on Saturday.
Thank you so much for reading while we have been over here. I know I have certainly learned a lot about this part of the world that I didn’t know, so I hope my blog has helped you to learn about it too. If you haven’t already considered coming to the Balkans, definitely do so! There is this perception back home that this part of the world is dangerous and not nice to visit, and it couldn’t be more wrong. The Balkans have had a turbulent past but are now coming back from that and are a fantastic tourist destination. There is so much to see, do and learn and the people are really nice and hospitable. They want you to see their countries now that the awful war of the 90s is in the past.
I’ve also had a fantastic time with my amazing Mum. This is our sixth time travelling together and we are so in sync that we are a great travel pair! I love her very much and admire her strength and passion for adventure. She came on this trip saying she was worried the younger people on our tour would think she was an old nuffy, and then she walked a heap more than most of them and beat most of them up the fort in Kotor (including me!!).
Now it’s back to cold, dark Melbourne and back to work. I know I will be back in Europe one day, it’s just a bit longer between visits nowadays because I have a mortgage and a full time job! I hope you’ll read along when I head to Egypt and Jordan in January which I am very excited about.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
Hi everyone,
So England ended up losing 2-1 because Croatia scored a goal in extra time. This is probably for the best though, because now I won’t feel tempted to get up at 4am on Monday for the final when I should be sleeping before work!!
The six of us did have a really nice dinner even though the soccer didn’t go our way. We enjoyed nice food and wine, and ended up heading back to the hotel at 11pm after a quick ice cream to get rid of our last few Macedonian coins.
This morning we had breakfast and then said goodbye to over half the people from our tour. Well, said good bye to some of them. Some of them I still didn’t know, and some of the ones I did know of I’m very glad I don’t have to see again haha. Some people left completely, others were heading off on another part of the tour to Greece, and some like us were heading to Sofia, Bulgaria.
On our half full bus, the 22 of us heading to Sofia had lots of space and a double seat each. We had a bit of a scare when a couple from NZ thought their passports had been left at the hotel, but they found them eventually and on we went. The border crossing didn’t take too long.
On the bus, Tanja got us to fill in a review about the tour. There is so much to write that I’ve actually typed up a huge note to post on the Travel Talk Facebook page tonight because I wouldn’t have enough room on paper. I don’t expect anything in return, but they need to fix up the itinerary and the best way to do that is from feedback. Tanja and Naya really did try their best. I feel Travel Talk let us down and let them down by changing the itinerary last minute and creating tension.
At 120 000 km squared, Bulgaria is one of the largest countries on the Balkan Peninsula. 70% of the country is mountainous. The reason this region is called the Balkans is because of the Balkan mountain range that passes through Bulgaria and a few other countries. It is 500km long. Apparently lots of Europeans come here to buy cheap second hand cars.
The bus stopped in the city for a walking tour, but Mum, Caroline, Sarah and I left the tour to check in to our hotels because after the journey here and the time going an hour forward, it was already 4pm. Initially we had booked the tour hotel but once we realised how far out of town it was, we booked our own. It was an awkward goodbye to Tanja who kept apologising for the stuff ups on tour, and no one else from the group that was left really said good bye to us. Strangest tour group I’ve ever been a part of!!
Our hotel is very central, quiet and unlike the tour hotels has fantastic air conditioning. Hooray!
At 6pm, the four of us joined the Sofia free walking tour. Our guide’s name was Slavya. As you’re reading this, you probably read ‘Sofia’ as we do with the girls’ name at home. But for the city name, you have to put the emphasis on the start of the word. Almost like saying “SOF-ya”. There has been life here for 6000 years, and the city is like one huge archaeological dig. The romans created a town here called ‘Serdica’, of which there are still many ruins here today. In fact the central train station took ten years to build because they hit so many ruins! It now centres around an exhibition about Serdica which we are planning on looking at tomorrow. The Roman road from Belgrade to Constantinople passed through here.
We first passed the church called Sveta Nedelya which had to be rebuilt after 1925, because of an event taking place much like the end of ‘Game of Thrones’ season 6. If you’re not up to it - skip this paragraph!! The communists were not a fan of King Boris the third (more on him later). They killed a general so that a funeral would be held in this church, then bribed someone so they could put explosives underneath the church. The funeral began, the church blew up and 200 ministers and generals inside died while 500 were injured. However, in true Balkan style, the king remained unscathed because he was 15 minutes late!
Despite the many beautiful churches here, Bulgarians are mostly non religious due to the suppression of religion during the communist period here.
The Ottomans ruled here for about 500 years until 1878 when the Russians liberated Bulgaria. Our next stop was the Banya Bashi Mosque. Originally there were quite a lot of mosques here, but at the end of the Ottoman rule, most muslims left so now this is the only mosque remaining in Sofia. There are 7 million people in Bulgaria, with 4 million of them living in Sofia. Today only 10 000 of these Sofia residents are Muslim.
In the same square there was also a synagogue, a Catholic Church and the aforementioned Orthodox Church. Because of so many religions coming together this is often called the ‘Square of Tolerance’. Bulgaria reluctantly sided with Germany during World War II, but were the only country to do so that stood up to the Nazis when they wanted to send the Jewish population to concentration camps. The first time, the locals bombed the train tracks to stop the trains. Then, there was a huge protest. Then, a religious leader stood on the tracks and said “over my dead body are you taking these people away!” Our guide said he was very proud of this defiance that delayed Jewish people being sent to death camps. There used to be 50 000 Jewish people living here. Now there are only 5000. Many fled to Israel because they feared they would be persecuted again.
Then we went to a spring. There are 40 hot water springs in the Sofia area alone, with supposed cardiological and other benefits. The water was 38 degrees Celsius due to volcanic activity under the city. We were glad we didn’t fill our bottles as it was still 30 degrees outside at 6.30pm!
We passed the president’s office, outside of which the old king’s guard stood in what looked like a very hot uniform for summer. Inside the courtyard here was Saint George’s Church, a Church from the fourth century that is the oldest preserved in Bulgaria. Here we saw an example of the first central heating system used by the Romans, with columns letting off heat into a hollow underground part to keep the floor heated.
We then stopped outside the Palace, which is now the National Art Gallery. Here our guide made a few people take part in a play to tell us the history of royals here! In 1878 when the Russians liberated Bulgaria from the Ottomans, there was no royal blood left in Bulgaria. They imported Alexander of Battenburg from Germany to be their king. He ruled OK for a while, but then had fights with Russia so they got an Austrian king instead. He was very absent minded, so to distract the people from his distracted leadership, he married an Italian princess. They then had the first “pure bred” Bulgarian king (not really - they were Austrian and Italian!) who was King Boris III, the one the communists tried to kill. Suspiciously, three days after meeting with Hitler he died in his sleep. Then his son became King Simeon II who was only six years old. The communists overthrew him and exhaled him to Spain. Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and Bulgaria eventually gained its independence, Simeon returned and became prime minister. Ironically, he then proceeded to make a coalition with some of the communists.
We saw some yellow bricks from Hungary that apparently the government paid a lot of money for. Many of the older generation still believe the lie that they were a gift for the royal wedding between the Austrian and Italian. However, it came out 80 years later that the price for them was so huge, Bulgaria is still paying them off today.
We saw the St Nicholas Russian Church, then the Hagia Sofia Church. This is where the city gets its name, because Hagia Sofia means ‘Holy Wisdom of God’. Back when this was a Roman town, this church was on the outside of the walls. When people approached Serdica they would say “we are nearly at Sofia”.
Our final stop was the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, built as a thanks to the Russians for the liberation in the war of 1878. It’s the biggest church in Bulgaria, and was the largest in the Balkans until St Sava was built in Belgrade.
Then the four of us had a quick rest before heading to a restaurant someone on our tour had recommended. Along the way we checked out more streets, squares and parks. We went souvenir shopping and ended up on a nice pedestrianised street. We had to make a reservation on a list at the restaurant, but once we got in after 30 minutes it was worth it.
We had beautiful wine, bread and lovely dips and then shared a platter of traditional Bulgarian meats. It was incredible! The best part was that it ended up being $22 Aussie each. We said good bye to Caroline and Sarah. They are both so lovely and we are all very like minded. Both are from Melbourne with Sarah currently living in London, but’s she’s coming home for Christmas so we are planning on catching up then.
One more post tomorrow before we head home!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
Hello everyone,
After I wrote last night, a few of us went with Naya and Tanja for a quick walk through the city of Skopje. The first thing we noticed is that there are a lot of ginormous statues and fountains here that are very over the top. At night they were all lit up in beautiful colours. We had a drink at a craft brewery and then headed back to our hotel.
This morning, Mum, Caroline, Sarah and I joined a free walking tour which was separate to our tour group. It turned out this was a little awkward because our tour group was starting a walking tour at basically the same time. But there are a number of people in the group as I’ve mentioned who aren’t very nice, and aren’t interested in history etc. We knew that walking tour would be a rush so we chose the other one instead.
It turned out to be a great choice. We had a very charismatic guide called Mika, and he was engaging and gave us lots of interesting information.
Skopje has had many earthquakes over the years, but particularly devastating ones occurred in 518, 1555 and 1963. After the 1555 one, much of the city was rebuilt in the Ottoman style because of the Ottoman Empire being in charge here for 500 years. The most recent devastating earthquake in 1963 took the lives of 1070 people. Considering that at this time there were less than 50 000 people living in the city this was huge. It was “only” a 6.1 on the Richter scale, but 83% of the buildings in the city were completely destroyed because they were not of a high standard. Only 5% of the buildings ended up being salvaged, including our first stop which was the old railway station. It is now a museum and has been partly left in ruins, with the clock on front still showing the time the earthquake occurred, 5.17am.
After the earthquake, countries from the east and the west (including the USA and Russia) all stepped in to help. England even leant the city five double decker buses for public transport because their system collapsed. They returned them after a few years, but nowadays they have ordered some more of them to commemorate the time they were used anyway. It’s strange seeing them driving around here!!
Over time just like many other Balkan cities we have visited, Skopje has been controlled by various empires and countries. The Ottomans ruled here for 500 years, then the Serbs, then the Austro-Hungarians, then the Bulgarians and then Yugoslavia. The main pedestrian street has changed its names 6 times in 90 years. Mika told us about an old lady living in a flat on this street who had lived in four different countries without even leaving her house.
Unlike Bosnia and a couple of other Balkan countries, Macedonia escaped the war of the 90s relatively unscathed and gained their independence on the 8th of September 1991. Serbs were not persecuted or under threat here, so they were allowed to go their separate ways after a few discussions about border. However, there are still disputes with Greece about the name ‘Macedonia’ because there is a region in Greece with the same name. As a result, Macedonia is not allowed into the EU just yet. You may have heard of Macedonia being referred to as ‘FYROM’ or ‘the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia’ because some countries refrain from just calling them Macedonia. Greece wants them to change their name to ‘North Macedonia’, and the minister for foreign affairs has agreed to but this will go to a referendum in September, and our guide reckons it won’t pass.
Next we went to a statue of a bull like the one in New York City and Mika started to tell us about the ‘2014 Project’ the last mayor started. This guy was in charge here for 11 years, and in that time spent €800 million of what Mika called “Copy Paste Syndrome”. Everywhere you look here there are buildings, statues etc that remind you of other places, and aren’t very Macedonian. The bull is one example, and we were going to see many more..
But first, we passed a beautiful new Orthodox Church being built, and then visited the Memorial House of Mother Theresa. Mother Theresa was born in Skopje on the 26th of August in 1910. She was baptised in the Catholic Church that formerly stood on this site. She then lived out most of her days in Calcutta, India and in 1979 won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was really interesting looking at photos of her interacting with the likes of the Queen, Ronald Reagan and more. We also saw personal items such as a headscarf she left in Skopje last time she visited. She died in 1997 in India and was made a saint in 2016. How strange to see the belongings of a saint, when usually they are merely ancient relics that we are unsure actually belonged to the saint!!
After looking at the chapel upstairs, we moved on. At this point we gained our “tour dog”. Stray dogs are well looked after here including food, shots and being fixed. As a result they are not aggressive and are actually very friendly. We ended up with about three following us, chasing off and barking at cars that came near us. The guide says the same ones follow him and “protect” his group most days. Cute!!
Then began the parade of statues. Like I mentioned before, the previous mayor spent an obscene amount of money here on monuments. When a new mayor came into power late last year, lots was put on hold and some things are being deconstructed. A bit like the East West Link at home!! For instance, a replica of the CN Tower was being built on the hill and cost €36 million, but is now being deconstructed. Our guide said he was ashamed because future generations will be paying off the loans for decades to come. On the way we also saw Mother Theresa's birth house.
We saw statues of Alexander the Great (cost €8 million) and both his parents, as well as many others. Mika said some of them don’t even have any meaning. The bridges here are also covered in them. We also saw the ‘Triumphal Arch’ which he said is hilarious because Macedonia have never really had any military victories, but that the mayor said he wanted this arch to celebrate cultural victories. It cost about €4.4 million, and €25 000 interest is paid just on this arch each month. Yikes! Two brothers from Macedonia created the Glagolitic alphabet, a stepping stone to Cyrillic. Because one of the brothers was called Cyril, this is where the word ‘Cyrillic’ comes from.
Then we passed the Stone Bridge. This was constructed in 519 after the first bad earthquake. In 1689, a guy called Karposh tried to lead a rebellion against the Ottomans. After less than five weeks, he was captured and was executed by being impaled on the bridge for three days. They also made him wear a boiling hot crown.
The three ships sitting permanently in the Vardar River were out there by the same mayor and don’t really have anything to do with Skopje either! They’re restaurants now.
Next we had a break in the Old Bazaar area where we got to try more Rakia. We reluctantly drank it and had a nice buzz afterwards! We found it interesting that after just 2-3 hours we felt more comfortable in that tour group than we did in the Travel Talk one we’ve been with for a week.
We continued up to the fort which was built in the 12th century. In the 1960s it was used as a storage facility in Yugoslavia during the time of fear of nuclear attack. We had a nice view from here and stood in some shade with our stray dogs surrounding us haha.
Here we found out that the reason Macedonia’s flag has a sun on it is because the people who lived here 2800 years ago worshipped the sun. We also learned that Macedonia aren’t very good at football, because they lost to Luxembourg whose goal keeper is a baker!! Haha.
We ended our tour by walking past the Mustafa Pasha Mosque and then going to the Holy Salvation Church. This didn’t look like much from the outside, but we learned that during Ottoman times if you wanted to build a Church here it had to be lower than the mosques and not as beautiful. So this one was built underground. The man inside wasn’t actually the tour guide, but the guide hadn’t turned up to work. He was a guard and was wonderful! He knew so much. The beautiful icons inside (which I wasn’t allowed to photograph) took three men seven years to build. It told lots of religious stories and was beautiful. Randomly, his son has moved to Melbourne! He’s about to get married and he told us we have stolen his son and we live at the end of the world!!
Once the tour ended, the four of us had lunch in the bazaar area. I had a local speciality which was meat with cheese inside. The men at the restaurant were so lovely. We have found everyone here to be. We went to look at their friend’s jewellery shop afterwards and each bought a pair of beautiful filigree earrings.
After a good break, Caroline, Mum and I went to the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle. It was quite well set out, but only some parts were in English. We felt we were missing some bits of information.
From what we could tell, the first somewhat successful uprisings against the Ottomans occurred in 1876 and 1878. Various Macedonian Revolutionary organisations were established. In 1903 there were many battles and lots of people died. It seems a lot of this country’s history during that time involved death and struggles.
In 1912-1913 the two Balkan wars took place, after which Macedonia was divided between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria. This meant that during World War I Macedonians were fighting on different sides of the war, leading to a bit of a loss of national identity.
Then Yugoslavia came along in the 1940s. The end of the museum was weird, because we thought we would learn about independence and happenings throughout this time, but apart from showing us prisons and work camps, it then just finished abruptly. We still enjoyed it but thought it could have been a little better explained.
We had a rest at the hotel and then the same six of us as in Ohrid (me, Mum, Erin, Susan, Sarah and Caroline) went out for dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. Now we are watching England play Croatia: and England so far are winning 1-0! I hope they win and go through to the final as they are my second home :)
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
