Castles, Croissants, and Calgary

A Quick Summary

We took a bus from Albania across the border to North Macedonia, to a small tourist town called Ohrid. We spent a couple nights there, then bussed to Skopje, the capital city. After a few days, we split up. Kira flew to Slovenia to continue her trip, and I flew to Paris to catch a flight home. I had 1 day to explore Paris before flying back to Calgary on Thursday.

Albania and North Macedonia

Full map

Highlights

Ohrid

Ohrid was a really tourist town, but it was really nice! It's a small town on a lake near the mountains, with some neat old churches and a nice walking path around. 

There also happened to be this running race going on while we were there, so there were tons of school-age kids and families there for that!

Free outdoor concert for the race

Here are some other photos of the town and the church overlooking the lake!

Statues in Skopje

Skopje was a very interesting and quirky city. I found this description of Skopje on a blog online that I think sums it up pretty well.

 In 2014 the North Macedonian Government inexplicably decided to spend an estimated €500 million on installing hundreds of statues, buying fake London buses from China, building a massive pirate ship in the river and covering many buildings in romanesque facades.

The citizens of Skopje were (rightly) outraged, as they felt that since North Macedonia is a relatively emerging country, that amount of money should have been spent on better things like healthcare, education and alleviating poverty. The citizens protested by throwing paint over many of the statues and facades. 

What this has left is a capital city full of pure weirdness that feels something like Disneyland and something like a dystopian fantasy but nevertheless somehow manages to retain an endearing charm.

I wouldn't go as far to say it felt like a "dystopian fantasy", but the city was pretty odd. We spent some time exploring an old fortress, checking out the (vandalized) pirate ships on the river, and walking around some of the interesting buildings. 

Pirate ship

View from the fortress

Knockoff Arc de Triomphe?

There were also SO many statues everywhere. I took some photos of them to try to get a sense of just how many there were, but it's hard to capture the sheer number of statues. On rooftops, on the bridges, on every street corner and square it seemed like there were statues.

Matka Canyon

One day while we were in Skopje, we took a day trip to a nearby Canyon. We spent some time hiking around the canyon and also up to a lookout above! We also got to take this boat trip to see a cave a bit further up the canyon. 

Inside the cave

A Day in Paris

I actually enjoyed my day seeing Paris a lot more than I thought I would! To be honest, I had pretty low expectations from what I had heard, but overall I found the city super clean and the food really good.

I did find out after that a lot of it was due to the Olympics. It seems like a day before I arrived the city completed a massive relocation of the homeless population. 

I spent the day walking around, taking in some of the sights, and stopping a few times for food at the bakeries. Sadly, most of the historic sights were under construction as they are venues for the Olympic games, but it was still really neat. And the Eiffel Tower was way more impressive than I thought it was going to be! 

Food Review

Ajvar

A popular food in the Balkans (apparently mostly eaten in winter) is ajvar. Kira described it as "a combination of red pepper hummus and spaghetti sauce" which I think was pretty accurate. It is a red pepper spread that is pretty good on bread and sandwiches!

Turkish Delight

There were a lot of tourists from Turkey in Macedonia, and there were a bunch of Turkish ice cream and other stores. We went into this one store that was very brightly coloured and got to try some teas and these really fancy Turkish delights. We got some that had flavoured filling in them that were really good!

Food in Paris

I really enjoyed the food I ate in Paris! I had the best pain du chocolate of my life as well as some good croissants! I also tried out Bo Bún, which is a French-Vietnamese fusion dish which came out of the French colonization of Vietnam. It turned out to just be similar to the vermicelli noodle bowls you can get from restaurants here but it was still really good!

Final Thoughts 

I can't believe I'm already back in Canada. It feels like the trip went by super fast, but I am also grateful for all the new memories and experiences from the past month. 

Thanks again to everyone who followed along with this trip! It was really fun reading all the comments and being able to reflect on each week and post some pictures. I'm going to pause the blog again for a bit now that I'm back in Canada, but I'm looking forward to the next adventure!

Extra Photos

Old bazaar area of Skopje

Cool mosaic 

Cross at the top of the hill

Cable car up to the cross

Macedonian history museum with wax sculptures 

Last night together ice cream