Adventures with Julia

October 1, 2017

I have been remiss in not sending maps of the countries we visit.  Here are a few to help you get caught up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent several days in Romania, especially in Transylvania.  Starting with Bucharest in the southeast.  We drove north and slightly west  to Sibiu; a tiny bit more north and east to Sighisoura;  then south and east to Brasov in the center.  From there we drove south to Piolesti in the mountains to see Charles I’s palace and then on to the Bucharest airport.

From Bucharest we flew to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria.  visited Sofia and drove southeast to Plovdiv to see the ancient old city there.  Then back to Sofia.  The next day we drove south 2 hours into the mountains to see the Rila Monastery (not marked).  Then back to Sofia.

Finally, we drove west from Sofia for Skopje, the capital of Macedonia.

Now we are in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, in the north central part of the country.

We arrived late yesterday morning, September 30, having gained an hour when we passed out of Bulgaria and into Macedonia.  The border crossing took an hour and a half because Ardi, our driver, did not understand the border guards request that we remain stopped.

When he began to move, the guard got angry and made Ardi drive the car to an inspection station and wait.  Nothing happened.

Finally, Elvis sent Ardi to the customs office with 10 Euro and our paperwork.  It was 30 minutes more before we were allowed to go.  In the meantime we went to a cafe for coffee and I hooked up to wifi.  With wifi I am a happy camper anywhere.

About an hour later we arrived in Scopje and went directly to our hotel and checked in.  What fun.

Our accommodations were a stateroom on a stationery twin masted boat on the Vardar River, which passes through the center of Skopje.

I love it, as we can hear the river rushing by our window, even though we are only steps from the main square and lots of street activity.

We ate lunch on the deck, then met our afternoon guide, a tall young woman, whose name I never did get.  She talked a mile a minute about Macedonian history, that seemed to me to be the same history we have been hearing for days in each of the Balkan countries.

We walked all around the heart of the city while she talked.

The name Skopje means “with spear” and was given by the Slaves who conquered the place in 695.  This city, like Sofia, is surrounded by fertile land with lots of water available.

Most of the city is new, due to huge earthquakes and fires the city has suffered over the centuries.  The first was in 518AD, the next was in 1555 and destroyed the city and the medieval walls.  In 1689 an Austrian general burned the city down partly because of the plague.

In the 1800’s a bazaar began to take hold in the old part of the city and gradually more business developed and the city began to recover.  At one point there were 100 different professions actively operating in and around the bazaar.   The last big quake was in 1963.  There were a few old buildings still standing.   Now many have been converted from their original use into something new.

Several have been made into museums including the National Theater and the Palace of Army Officers. She took us into a small building that did not look like a church, but was St Savior Orthodox Church, to show us the lovely iconostasis wall inside.  I managed one  photo before she stopped me from taking more.  She also took us inside the Mustafa Pasha Mosque dating from 1492, where photos were permitted.

The mosque had been damaged during the earthquake, who still had some original art work in place.  We stopped at a pastry shop in the bazaar and bought a cookie-like sweet, she called a Padobrance.

Statues have been erected all over the new city to commemorate important people in the city’s history and culture.  Mark thinks there are so many statues, one needs only to die to have one erected.  The last place she showed us was Mother Terese’s chapel and small museum.  Mother Teresa was born in Skopje on August 26, 1910.  She left home in 1928 to become a nun and, after many years of service, she died in Calcutta September 5, 1997 at age 85.   During the guide’s tour, Elvis and Ardi had stayed with us.   We got them to leave us when she did.  Finally on our own, we had dinner in a street cafe near our boat.

Today, October 1, we made a short excursion north into Kosovo to a town called Kacanik, just to say we have been there.  Mark commented that our trip is half over and we are on the first day of the second half of the trip.  Wow.  We are now both well again and getting on a roll.  Seems to always happen after the third week.  Anyway…..

We drove around and noticed how poor the city was and how many buildings were shabby and unfinished.

We also noticed lots of trash laying around in the streets and along the road side.  Kosovo has a population 2 million and is one of the poorest countries in Europe, with 31% unemployment.  Elvis said that family members who live abroad send money back every month to keep people going.

The average income both in Kosovo and in Albania is $300 per month.

We stopped at a coffee house full of old men smoking and chatting away.  I was the only woman, but they seemed to ignore me after a few minutes.  It was a pleasant hang out except for the dense smoke.

Then we headed back to the border.  We had considered going all the way to Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, but

Elvis said there was nothing much to see, so we decided to give ourselves the afternoon free in Skopje.

We got back to the city just in time for me to get to the English Mass in the local Catholic Church, which is frequented by Mother Teresa’s nuns.

There were only 15 or so people in the small church, but the service was in English, which I appreciated.

Then I met up with Mark and we had some lunch a went shopping.  I finally found a couple of sweaters.  If the weather improves, I will not need them.

In the evening we walked around the bazaar and the square along with hundreds of locals and tourists.

For once the evening was pleasant, I had on a new sweater and we are both completely over our colds.  We found a place to have some pasta and salad and walked back to our boat for a tea before turning in.

I got a few more images to fill out the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both Elvis and Ardi are Albanian and will be with us until we get to Montenegro in a few more days.   Ardi does not speak English, but Elvis is very fluent and has talked a lot about the Balkans, the people and especially the Albanians.  One of our conversations was about the fact that Kosovo and Albania are the same people and wish they were all in one country.  The two Prime Ministers are presently trying to improve passage between the two countries and hope for both to join the EU.  Elvis thinks that is impossible as neither country is ready to be a member.

Elvis expounded on a number of topics and these are his thoughts.   We learned that the Cyrillic writing, or Slavic script, we have been seeing on signs for the last many days is used in all the Balkans, except Albania and Kosovo.  The Balkan countries include: Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Romania.  We will be visiting all of them before we are through.

Religion in Macedonia is 60% Orthodox Christian, 30% Muslim, which is composed of 18% Albanian, 4% Turkish and 2% Serbian.  However, not many people practice their religion.  It is for sure there are not many practicing Catholics….at least not English speaking ones.

More later.