I originally travelled to Romania for work for a few days. As I quite enjoy the region and there was (is) so much yet unseen, decided to take a vacation for a week and explore more of the countries nearby.
The Palace of Parliament is the largest and heaviest administrative building on the planet used for civilian purposes, and the second largest administrative building overall, after the Pentagon.
The constructions began in 1983 during communist reign, by the time of the Romanian Revolution in 1989 the building wasn’t finished. It was completed after the revolution just because it was cheaper to complete it than demolish. Today it has 1100 rooms. It has controversial history and also has controversial feels about it. It's huge and luxurious, quite majestic even, yet also depressive and cold. 10 000s of houses were destroyed and more than 40 000 people moved to find space for building the palace.
It is bigger than Cheops’ Pyramid. For building it there was needed 1.000.000 m³ of marble, 900.000 m³ wood, 3.500 tons of crystal, and there's 220.000 m² of carpets inside.
The communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was a cautious man. There are massive tunnels above for escaping and there isn't air condition as he was afraid he will be poisoned.
The balcony designed for speeches which he never got to use. Interestingly enough the first outing on it was a Michael Jackson concert.
Estonian delegation out in old town after the official dinner.
Our hostel was a bit out of the central. Uber is very cheap in Bucharest so there is no need to figure out the buses, but traffic is horrible in Bucharest. The locals say they don't have traffic jams they just have traffic, at every hour. I used metro when going to the bus station, that was easy enough.
Muzeul National al Satului "Dimitrie Gusti". We were offered a tour in the lovely museum. Even the rain stopped for a couple hours for us to have a stroll. Last year when we visited Romania in March, we spent first three days in Transylvania which treated us with gorgeous fresh a bit spring-like weather, the moment we got to Bucharest there was only rain for 3 days straight. This time it was quite rainy as well, at least it was May and warm!
Bucharest is not in general a very picturesque city but the old town Lipscani is quite lovely, but super small. It's basically a couple narrow streets that get fun and lively by the evening.
And obviously polenta! Cannot go to Romania and not have their tasty meat and polenta dishes.
Took a night bus from Bucharest to Sofia, Bulgaria. Altho the bus was late it got to Sofia on time. I had 25 minutes to find the correct platform in a huge bus station like area; exchange money to buy the bus ticket; find a place to buy that ticket while also trying to get the attention of the vendor who was having a very fun conversation on the phone and was not too interested in selling any tickets at that hour; and barely escape from getting scammed twice. Made it and reached Skopje, Macedonia by 11.30 am. Found our hostel (well a flat that was made into a hostel (hostel Valentin 2) in an old apartment-building. 5 EUR a night and lovely host and other visitors) and met up with Keiu.
First breakfast! I love food in the Balkans. Their meat and cheese, simple yet so rich and tasty dishes. Cheap food, beer and wine everywhere. What else would a heart desire..
Don't go too greedy tho. This wine definitely was not dry, nor red really. A litre cost 2€ at a restaurant, so yes maybe that is too cheap. Some of the local wines in Kosovo and Albania tho, were very good.
Skopje has rich history and even today is a city of contrasts.
I really liked the city! They use old London double-decker buses for regular city transport, there are pirate ships in the river used as night clubs, there are these fancy houses on one side of the river, small cafes and bars on the other side, just crossing the old Stone Bridge, there's the old bazaar and Ottoman mosques and tombs, and there are old soviet houses 20 minutes walk away. At least in May it was not over-crowded and just in general very walkable and friendly.
There are over 100 monuments in 2 sq km radius.
Skopje 2014 was a project financed by the then-Macedonian government with the purpose of giving the Skopje a more classical appeal and add charm to the city center, which was hurriedly reconstructed after an earthquake leveled 80% of the city in 1963. These new neo-classical buildings were largely built in 4 years from 2010 to 2014. Most of them are museums, theatres, operas etc. The seemingly lovely project was also quite controversial because of a political rift between Macedonia and Greece.
Art Bridge of Skopje, meant to resemble the Charles Bridge in Prague.
"Warrior on a Horse” aka Alexander the Great statue on Macedonia Square
Memorial house of Mother Theresa
The old train station, which partly collapsed in the 1963 earthquake, was left in its semi-destroyed state and is now the premier memorial to the disaster. Its remaining half still stands at the head of Macedonia Street, with the clock on its central facade stopped at 5:17, the exact time the earthquake struck.
We headed to the rooftop of hotel Arka in the Old Bazaar area. It looked closed, deserted even, but the view was amazing and cocktails enjoyable.
Dinner at Old Bazaar.
On the last afternoon strolled around, visited a lovely rakija bar and enjoyed the company of the British travellers we managed to run into many times on the trip to Matka canyon, finally gave up and decided to walk around together.
Across the Stone Bridge, one of the oldest ones in Europe. Today it links the old part to the new.
Watching Eurovision in a bar. Thanks to this new voting system, we thought for a while North-Macedonia could have a chance to win. Even the locals got very excited.
As Serbia and Kosovo have complicated relations it is easiest to go to Kosovo from Macdonia, it's a 1,5-hour bus trip from Skopje to Pristina.
Kosovo is yet another hidden gem in Eastern Europe. We only visited Pristina but it surprised me in a positive way.
Pristina is the capital of Kosovo, currently Europe’s newest country. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but only 102 out of 193 United Nations member states recognize it. On most buildings Kosovan and Albanian flags fly together.
Kosovo uses Euro as it's currency and English was quite well spoken.
Bill Clinton lead NATO into action when Serbia was attacking Kosovo. So in his honour, there's this statue, and a store around the corner called Hillary. Kosovo is probably a country where American travellers are welcomed with open arms.
Pristina has many cosy cafeterias and lovely bars to chill the day away. The coffee culture seems also very popular amongst the locals.
Church of Christ the Saviour. A Serbian Orthodox Church that was built before the war in order to start imposing Serbian power. It was built illegally on the University grounds and was never completed.
National library of Kosovo, the university library, arguably the ugliest building in the world, altho quite cool and unique in its own way.
When the Declaration of Independence was signed in 2008, the “Newborn” statue was put up to mark it. Every year the letters are decorated differently.
Back in Skopje we headed to nature for a day to visit the beautiful Matka canyon.
It's only around 15 km away from the city centre and easily accessible by buses as well, just need to buy a bus card before entering the bus as no tickets can be bought on the bus. It's popular amongst tourists and locals both. There is no entrance fee at Matka Canyon. It's possible to rent a boat, kayak, visit monasteries or go hiking. They also offer a boat trip/cave tour, which was more impressive than I thought, the cave is quite deep and lit up which makes the stalagmites and stalactites colourful and illuminated. It lasts around an hour and costs around 6 EUR.
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