Day 1: Car insurance is going to cost us a kidney!

We arrived at the Deve Bair border crossing between Bulgaria and Macedonia on a rainy November morning after visiting the Rila Monastery and sleeping on a nearby field last night. Everything was nice and easy and the border crossing didn’t take much time but the problem was with our car. As we drove a pick-up truck, our car didn’t fall under personal vehicles in North Macedonia and so we were charged an incredible 120 Euro for insurance. It may not sound like too much but it was more than a month for the whole EU, plus, we only planned to stay one night in the country.

We thought for a bit about alternatives but this was the way we planned it and we were on the clock for the last couple of weeks of our journey so we decided to pay it and continued.

Our first stop was a rock formation called “The Stone Dolls”. Before we headed in, we had a quick coffee and breakfast. The entrance was 2 Euros each and the keeper spoke some English so he was able to explain to us a little about the place.

There was a scientific explanation of why the rocks eroded this way but of course, there is always the folk one as well. In this case, a woman cursed a couple during their wedding as she found out that her partner was living a double life and was marrying another woman. She then turned into stone as well.

We then continued to explore the nearby town of Kratovo. It was quite a lovely place and we got a coffee from a local shop and took some pictures of the towers and bridges.

The Lesnovo Monastery is located nearby but we didn't have data and didn't do well-enough research so we missed it.

We then headed back to the main road and continued West to the capital city Skopje. We went to do some shopping and wanted to go for a walk but it started raining again so we headed to our hotel. We could sleep in our car but we weren’t sure about the rules since we were back in Europe and the hotel prices weren’t bad (we paid 16 Euros for a room). The hotel didn’t have parking and the surrounding area was packed so we ended up on a curb right by an intersection, but since there were another 10+ cars like this we weren’t worried we would get a ticket.

We spend a few hours at the hotel (possibly watching some football…can’t remember) and later walked to the town center. The rain stopped and it was a pleasant walk. We saw some of the main things in the town and left the fortress and Old Bazar for tomorrow as they were closed anyway. We usually go for local food but that night we opted out for an Irish restaurant and beers.

North Macedonia name change
I remember from school that we always called the country just Macedonia. Later, I thought we were just lazy and shortened the name but I was also a wee bit confused thinking there are maybe two countries, one Macedonia and one North Macedonia. As it turned out both of these are "kind of" correct. After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the country was called Macedonia but there was a dispute about the name with the northern part of Greece which bears the same name. This quarrel was settled in 2018 and the country changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia.

Day 2: Matka Canyon and Skopje

We started the next morning by checking out of the hotel and heading to the nearby Matka Canyon. There is a dam, a monastery, a restaurant built into a cave, and a nice path following the edge of the water alongside the wall of the canyon. We walked the trail for a while before turning back and heading back to the car. On the way, we stopped to check the monastery. We were greeted by a pack of dogs at our car, so we gave them some leftovers.

We then headed back to Skopje, parked the car in a residential are near the city center, and walked around for a bit, exploring the places we saw last night. Then we crossed the river Vardar River using the Stone bridge and headed up the hill to the Skopje Fortress. We walked around for a bit and then headed back to our car through the Old Bazar.

It was early in the afternoon when we were back at the car but we didn’t plan anything else for Macedonia, so we headed for the border with Kosovo which was only about half an hour drive away from Skopje.