What to see in Skopje, itinerary including the main monuments and places of interest, including Stone Bridge, Old Bazaar and Mother Teresa of Calcutta museum.
Tourist information
Capital of the Republic of Macedonia, Skopje rises about 260 meters above sea level, on the banks of the Vardar River.
On the left of the river is the ancient part of the town, characterized by testimonies from the Ottoman and Byzantine periods that survived the destructive earthquake of 1963.
Among these monuments, the Daut-Pashin Amam, an ancient bathroom of the fifteenth century, now intended as an art gallery, the Mustafa Pasha mosque, dating back to 1492, and the mausoleum of Mustafa Pasha stand out.
In the same area there is also the Old Bazaar of Skopje, which for centuries has been the center of city life, with craft shops, bookstores, and various jewelers where you can buy beautiful traditional oriental style jewelry.
What see
On the outskirts of Skopje there is a section of the Byzantine aqueduct dating back to the fifth century AD. and, in a dominant position over the city, the fortress of Kale, built in the sixth century A.D. by the Byzantines, and subsequently remade by the Turks.
Among the bridges that connect the ancient part of the city to the modern one, stands the ancient Stone Bridge, one of the symbols of Skopje, built in the fifteenth century by the Ottomans, through which you reach the spacious Macedonia Square, the heart of the modern city.
It is in this area that the city has undergone a radical architectural and urban transformation, the result of a contrasted nationalistic project carried out by the Macedonian government in recent years.
Impressive neoclassical buildings have been built, and numerous large statues are scattered throughout the city, with the aim of highlighting that the origin of the Macedonian identity must be sought in the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia and the Macedonian hero Alexander the Great, rather than at other times in the history of this country, which has seen the passage of many cultures.
Skopje is also the birthplace of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who was baptized in the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1910.
In place of this Church, destroyed by the 1963 earthquake, today stands the house-museum dedicated to Mother Teresa, where numerous family photographs, her writings and period furnishings are kept.
