Weekend in Macedonia

 A small country running along the entire eastern border of Albania - population 2,000,000

40% of the population are Albanians and 60% Macedonians, not always jiving together

We visited our friends who have moved from Tirana to Skopje, Mark and Madlyn. Great hosts!

This is a city that is putting a huge new face on their capital city of Skopje

An earthquake in the early 1960s and very dirty river  made a city that needed a face lift

. There are multiple statues of Alexander the Great at all stages of his life

500 million Euros later, there are statues of animals, angels, every Macedonian who has notoriety in the city. This is sort of the MGM lion but there are classical ones as well.

One downside is that the Albanians are not represented and the Greeks are not happy that the Macedonians have claimed Alexander the Great for their own.

The night show, light show and water show are quite the scene!

There are statues like these swimmers, a modern day statue touch

This country has got it going on when it comes to wine. Delicious. I found a chardonnay just like Sonoma Cutrer

While my photos are ok, check out our friend's photos of Skopje at www.kickedinthebalkans.blogspot.com

Our next stop was a visit to a vineyard and ancient city of Stobi

This was a large city from the first to the seventh century

Buried in the ground, this was the refrigerator (2,000 years old!)

Fancy homes had these reliefs around the courtyards

Entrance to a large home. Pillars supported the roof over the courtyard

 

So here is a little archeology lesson in mosaics. This was typical of the Pagans. Paganism reigned from the 1st to the 3rd century AD. Any signs of Christianity were punished severely. Then in the 4th century, the Romans decided that Christianity was the region's and rulers chosen religion. So, all the Pagans were slaughtered, temples covered over with Christian churches. This mosaic above is the simple design that the Pagans used for decorating floors.

Notice the more complicated mosaic from the Christian period

This is another example of Christian mosaic in the Baptistery (where folks were baptized)

No explanation needed here!

The gorgeous drive back to Tirana, we went through Mavrova National Park

Capped off the trip with some Ohrid lake trout at a seaside restaurant. Albania is the tiny strip of land on the top right

Another wonderful trip to the politically complex Balkan countries, but always treasures from history, landscape that many countries would love to have and friendly folks to make the visit memorable.