Macedonia - Day 2

On March 12th we headed toward the capital of Macedonia, Skopje.  On the way there we stopped for some coffee, hot chocolate and pop at a restaurant on a boat.  It was a great little stop!  Then we stopped in at Babba Donka.  Kathy warned us about her and food and I don't think we really understood it until we met her.  LOL  The moment we stepped into her home, food was set out, it was "snacks" but oh so much food all ready.  We grabbed a few of the relatives and headed down town to Skopje.  It is a city of almost one million people.  

This is a statue of Alexander the Great!!!  The Greeks say he came from Greece because they don't see Macedonia as a country, but he is from Macedonia.  There are so many statues in Skopje that I don't know if anybody knows how many there truly are.  The government decided to spend over 500 mllion euros and put up statues all over the place.  They were meant to be done by 2014, but they are still building them today.

There were statues of him all over the place!!!  Dane and Kathy told us they should rename Skopje to statue town because there are hundreds of statues.  The reason there are so many statues in Skopje goes back to 2008 when the local economy crashed.  Much like many countries around the world, they targeted tourism as a major source of income and revenue, and the Government came up with the Skopje 2014 redevelopment project.  With a budget of estimated to be between 80-500 million euros, they decided to make the capital more "aesthetically pleasing" by building statues. 

This is one of their statues for their soldiers of Macedonia.

This one the older boys got a kick out of because it looks like he is holding up the middle finger.  Every time Greece upset Macedonia they would build another Alexander the Great statue.

They were having some special celebration and had the Macedonian flags all over the place, including on many of the statues in down town.

This is the Porta Macedonia.  It is a triumphal arch located on Pella Square.  It cost about 4.4 million euros to build.

The plaque that was above where Mother Teresa was born.

This is the house where Mother Teresa was born!  You can see that they but the corners of her house.  It was really, really tiny.

This is the biggest statue in Skopje, "The Great Warrior."  It is of Alexander the Great riding atop of his horse Bucephalus.  They can't make reference to Alexander the Great because of current disputes with Greece.

The boys with the lion!!

And you have to have your lion face!!!!

One of the pranks that the kids do in Skopje is paint the lion's private parts red.  I am not sure when it started, but they sure are red.

They treated Michael to a sucker, he loves when his tongue changes color!!

They even had a statue of a young boy shinning shoes.

You have to love when the sucker changes your tongues colors!!!

This is the museum for Mother Teresa.  Unfortunately it was closed when we arrived there.

They had many pictures of her and of all the people that she  helped.  It is truly amazing how much good one person can do!

I am not sure what this is for, but I had a good giggle looking at it.

There were so many statues that even our "tour guides" weren't sure what they all were for.

This is a floating restaurant, one that can't get out anymore with all the bridges.

We love our lions!!!

I think the bridge looked beautiful lit up at night.  There are statues down both sides over a dozen just on this bridge alone.

This was a sad  one showing a mom leaving her husband and children and one not wanting her to go.

We headed over to a mall and Michael found his hat - a chicken hat!!!  We went back and had a FABULOUS Macedonian dinner and they made Michael two types of homemade chicken nuggets and homemade fries.  It was such a wonderful and fantastic experience!!  We really want to go back and see more of the area!!  The people were so nice and friendly as well!!  After a fantastic evening we headed to bed and woke up to a fantastic breakfast!!  They don't do anything small there.  Unfortunately we were only able to stay for a four day weekend.  We are hoping for a longer stay next time!