Aug 5th, Belgrade to Skopje

8/5       Monday

Novak comes to the apartment at 5:30 in the morning to give us a ride to the bus. We told him we could walk, but he insisted. He’s a nice guy, and we appreciated the lift. We have a long bus ride to Skopje, Macedonia, at least eight hours. The bus is pretty comfortable, though, more leg room than usual. I usually think we’ll be reading or napping, but I’m usually just caught up watching the scenery out the window. We drive through Serbia for several hours, lots of small farms and cornfields, a few industrial sites, more closed and broken-down factories than any operational. It all looks pretty similar to western New York or Ohio.

Coming into Macedonia, the mountains get steeper, and it’s more like West Virginia. We follow the pass of a narrow river valley, high green peaks all around us. There’s not a lot of room for development, it’s mountain, river, town, railroad, highway crammed into the low ground between the steep hills. We see houses and farms on the high ground, but we don’t see any roads going through the hills.

Tina, our host picks us up at the stations. She’s very bright and lively, and drives like a nutcase, cutting into traffic going the wrong way to get ahead of a bus at the red light. Nonetheless, we manage to arrive alive at the apartment. We have a lovely, modern and spacious two-room place on the sixth floor of a newer building just a few blocks from the center of the city. There’s a terrace off the front and one off the back, both with great views of the mountains. We have a supermarket on the corner and a café on the first floor, so we’re all set.

1 Video Included

Bus Belgrade to Skopje