The Ham Nomads

3 May 2015. <MK> Skopje —

We're having a wonderful time with birds here at Ilinden, what with the entertainment provided by the ducks yesterday, and the nightingale's overnight serenade. We also noticed another guest of the hotel, atop a pylon near the front entrance!

Dogs were arriving for day two of the dog show as we left for town, but we wanted to get in to commune properly with Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu, aka Mother Theresa.

We got into town, got off at the Old Bazaar, called in to the stall for a couple more Mekici — the man in the stall, remembering us, asked us to wait while he made some fresh for us. Beautiful! There's nothing better than fresh-fried Mekici (unless it's fresh-fried poffertjes!).

We wandered across the river and straight to the Mother Theresa Memorial House, which was open! Inside, you have a replica of the room she lived in for much of her life. There are also documents from important stages of her life — her final vows as a Missionary of Charity (12 April 1953), the letter awarding the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (6 January 1971) the Nobel Peace Prize certificate (10 December 1979), amongst many others. Upstairs is a small chapel which opens out to an open balcony — obviously at times they need a bit of room for expansion!

We did more statue spotting after this — there are so many here you could spend weeks on this pursuit. Some of the statues we wanted to find are currently hidden behind construction-site fencing, so we had a few disappointments, but there were still plenty to go around!

Then we went up to the Skopje Fortress Kale. Here we were somewhat disappointed — the place has so much potential, but still has so much to be done to make it a viable tourist destination, We're being a bit harsh here — the fortress was virtually destroyed in the 1963 earthquake, so they're still in the early stages of recovery. The fortress dates back to the 4th century BC, and the archaeological finds have been safely preserved, and are now on display in the Archaeological Museum we visited yesterday. Parts of the ramparts have been restored, but they still have a long way to go!

From the Fortress you can look over the city, and we had a good view of the places we had already walked, and of the sports stadium, and we could see just how much new building work is going on.

From the Fortress, we wandered back into the Bazaar, passing the Mustafa Pasha Mosque, and went down to have a late lunch in the Bazaar — went to a Turkish kebab shop. They had a new take on kebabs — instead of putting th kebab into a wrap, some Turkish flat bread was folded around the meat. Must comment on the amount of smoking going on here — looks like they're at least 50 years behind Australia's anti-smoking status. And they go to great lengths with their smoking — in the bazaar some of the restaurants provide hookahs for their customers' benefit. You feel somewhat reluctant to give anything to a beggar when you see the cigarette smoke coming from their concealed hand. And begging seems to be a way of life around here.

We revisited a few places from yesterday — you just can't help it!

The north bank of the river — Restaurant Alley?

The Bridge of Civilisation

A view to the south bank

The fishing must be good!

Then we caught the bus back to the campsite, for another night of nightingale song! On the way back we noticed some beautiful poppies by the wayside.

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 19,277 miles ( 31,024 km )