Wonderful old town Skopje with Bill Smale Adventures. • Folksy Travel by Bill Smale

Wonderful old town Skopje of North Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia and after they broke up with the other parts of the republic they named their country Macedonia which raised the anger of the Greeks sense Macedonia was the kingdom of Alexander the great who was physically occupying an area south of Macedonia which is now in Greece so the Greeks forced them to change the name to North Macedonia. That’s an interesting turn on the litigations against names which extended to “champagne”, “Parmesan cheese” and “, “camembert”, oh and not to forget “Budweiser”. Skopje is the capital and is famous for its old town and large buildings proclaiming it’s history and culture.

Wonderful dogs — the dogs are very friendly, seemed to be homeless but are very clean, well fed and they have a tag in their ear for identification.

Flying to Skopje — Flying from Belgrade you can see the mountainous Kosovo

Wonderful sea of clouds — The sea of clouds

Wonderfully bad food — I don’t often put negative things in my Phlogs but this was one of the worst meals I’ve ever had. The beef was bad and it was almost all bones, fat and grizzle. I was told it was a very good place for grilled food but I was way overcharged for things I didn’t order and for things they didn’t say they were going to charge for so it was a good experience in a tourist trap which I really don’t need but I guess you can’t avoid all of them.

Skopje dog — Another buddy who I met every day

Bad Skopje hotel name — Not a name you would give a hotel in the US

Quality Skopje food — This local restaurant provided some language difficulties but they were very nice people and the food was for local inhabitants and was really nice and very good quality. Kebapcilnica Rio 1990

https://maps.app.goo.gl/La3LaCE7Xhzexq9h7?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

Wonderful menu — Of course they have an easier to read menu

A quiet Skopje drinking area — A nice place to just duck into and have an aperitif

Wonderful coffee and cheesecake — Coffee and cherry cheesecake is wonderful

Military shopping — The military also goes shopping

Ancient clothing — An antique store with some heritage clothing

Skopje Shopping area — The old shopping area

Antique phones — In case you need a new phone

Empty seating area — There is a lot of outside seating for restaurants and coffee shops but it was very cold

Wonderful Skopje Jewelry shops — Gold and jewelry shops and ladies beautiful dresses are on display all over this old town. I counted more than 50 jewelry shops

Wedding dresses — There is even a wedding dress store

Typical Shop — Just a typical small shop

The local Skopje bazaar — This is at the end of old town and is where the local people go shopping in their bazaar. You can find a lot of of name brand but very cheap products. I even found a shop that was selling secondhand fake Rolexes

The indoor portion — The indoor part of the local bazaar

Albanian souvenirs — There is a very large population of Albanians which I was told were kicked out of Kosovo by the Serbian and now live in North Macedonia.

Beautiful dresses — More beautiful dresses

A famous old warrior — I wasn’t really interested enough to check who this was

Park on the sidewalk — If the street has no parking you just park on the sidewalk which creates some difficulties for pedestrians

Building artwork — Artwork on a large building

Abandoned business — This used to be a working restaurant or coffee shop I guess

The wonderful Skopje river — The main river in scoop J

The bridge of famous people — This is the bridge with statues of fairly recent famous people

Of floating restaurant — This is a restaurant but was not open at the time. You can see the Macedonian flag

The Skopje bridge of civilization — Read the plaque below which explains the figures

A replica sarcophagus — This of course is a replica and I didn’t ask which Alexander this was for. I was under the impression the remains Alexander the greatare still in some unknown place but maybe I am confused with something else.

Ancient mosaic — Rebuilding an ancient mosaic

Beautiful glass creation — I just thought this was really beautiful

Ancient salt mine — This salt mine competes in ancient history with the Celtic salt mines in Salzburg Austria

Explanation of the mine — As you know salt was very important to preserve food and to provide minerals for the body

Alexander the great statue — Of course Alexander the great Hase to show up

Phillip's statue — Alexander’s father Philip

Alexander's mother fountain — The fountain memorializing Alexander’s mother

Wonderful Skopje cappuccino and toffee cake — A wonderful cappuccino with a toffee layer cake

Wonderful north Macedonian food — I was back at my favorite local restaurant I showed you above and I got a whole assortment which was really delicious but a little bit too much food. But I just had to try the variety and get an idea of some north Macedonian food.

Cooking on TV — And while I was eating this woman was doing some cooking on TV

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