Skopje, the city of a thousand vomiting lions

Skopje, the city of a thousand vomiting lions

and other cool stuff


My Macedonia was full of lions, they are the national symbol there. Every fountain is laced with them, even the main bridges are. There are lions everywhere, apparently this was something to do with them being a triumphant dynasty in the olden days it was a symbol of their power and prestigiousness I guess much like our 'three lions on a shirt.' The more lions you have the tougher you are.



It's difficult to determine whether there is a new or old part of town. The bizarre looks a little run down, it follows the Balkan trend of a wedding dress shops on every corner and a few in between, these stand out rather glamorously against the ramble of other shops like one might go to the Oscars on a Friday night and need a new dress every week. They all sparkle and they are all beautiful.

We spent most of our time round the fountainous region. Looking at all the warriors, women and vomiting lions on the Alexander fountain, (we may have imitated a few here to, picture to follow lol). This part of town follows a very classical our Renaissance style to its architecture and fountains. It's a pretty arty place there are hundreds of statues. In particular there is some on this bridge called, 'the art bridge' where Skopje celebrates its artists, painters, poets, writers, educators and reformists with a menagerie of bronze sculptures of the famous people in question.

Pretending to be a lion

 In keeping with the art theme we visited two museums... Ooooooo I hear you say! Yes two!  The first of which was the Skopje city museum, inside were hundreds of sketches or cartoons mostly from places who had tricky governments, or who seemed to be under some persecution of some sorts. There's were very varied and interesting although a lot of the meaning was lost on us feeble English not really knowing the back story and there being no labels. Some of the images we had to view sideways as the glue holding them up had failed them. The other half of this museum was a more permanent exhibition about the earthquake that had happened in 60s which had totally destroyed and devastated he region. I was encouraged by two things one is the huge humanitarian effort from the world that gave real life to those affected. Literally the whole world seemed to be helping these people, even giving them tents that housed them for months let alone all the medical care, food etc. This effort seemed especially valiant one, because there were many many earthquakes that day not just the one and other shakes lasted up till ten days later. And secondly because of the longevity of the aid given it went on for months.

The other thing I was encouraged by was about the earthquake but also about Mother Teresa(MT) (who came from Skopje)  was that both her and the shaky people wrote tirelessly about solidarity with the nations and governing bodies around them. Constantly bringing about this sense of uniformity with their causes and their world. Now of course I know there were the people 'in need' rather than two superpowered Rams knocking heads, but I guess I was impressed by both their abilities to negotiate.



The second museum (other then the MT museum) was a gallery, based in an old hammam (they seem to reuse these buildings a lot in the Balkans) showing a collection of art stretching from the impressionist to present day genres. This helped us realise why some people were on the art bridge, others not so much J.  But lent us a good understanding of the things that effected the cultures at the time, and it's always nice to look at glossy paint.

Ok final final museum, the holy grail of museums, the Mother Teresa or (MT) museum. This was a brief collection of photographs of all those life's (well the famous ones) MT had influenced, there were photos with the Kennedy's, Diana, the Dali Lama and the Pope (Paul II I think). It was quite moving to see how far one nun managed to reach, and what she was able to do in her life time. In a time where the church and in particular nuns seem to have less relevance in society, it's amazing that she got as far as she did.  I bet she inspired many a lady to think of joining an order. My favourite photo in the exhibit was of MT coo-ing over and playing with a baby that photo seemed to have more life in it then all the photos of all the other celebrities. Funny really, perhaps in the others she was nervous, or on best behaviour.


That's all my thoughts on that. Except for OMG the thunderstorms, nearly shit the bed. So loud at night woke me up in terror.

Ok bye guys! 

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