What to see in Skopje, capital of The Republic of Macedonia: Mother Teresa, Alexander The Great and more

The country is divided by a river, the Vardar.
Serbia and breakaway Kosovo are to the north near the capital, Skopje. If you are a positive person, or going with a group of friends of mixed nationalities and religious, you will enjoy the mixture of religions and ethnic groups, all clamouring for attention and offering interesting sights and tastes of food.

What to see in Skopje

You can find a map of a self-guided walking tour. Look for:

1 The stone bridge links the old town and Centar (centre)
2 Old town (Stara Carsija)
3 Main triple museum -
4 Mother Teresa House museum
5 Holocaust Museum and Museum Of The Macedonian Struggle
6 Alexander the Great memorial
7 Giant Cross on Mount Vodno
8 Fortress wall
9 Monasteries and  Mosques
10 Wineries

1 The Bridge - 6 Alexander - 7 Fortress wall last picture

Hotel Stone Bridge has a view of the bridge from some of the rooms. If you want a room with a view, send one person to check the view before accepting the booking.

Photos by 'Extratall' from Wikitravel. I assumed that Extratall was a nickname. On the other hand, common names in use today were originally nicknames, such as Paul which means small.

4 Mother Teresa House


Mother Teresa House
Mother Teresa (1910-1997, died aged 87) was born in Skopje, worked in India and was awarded the Nobel peace prize.
The extraordinary building, built to commemorate her, started in 2008. Bits go in and bits go out. Oblongs, arches, v-shapes, stepped shapes, circles. Colours are also a mixture: green, white, orange and stone.

This bizarre building is also surrounded by incongruous ugly modern blocks of flats, of a contrasting, completely simple and regular design, all straight lines and huge slabs and no more than three colours.
Many pictures on Tripadvisor.

See her statue.

Go inside. Another statue shows her as a child with a pigeon.

Mother Teresa said:
The biggest disease today is ... the feeling of being unwanted.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no-one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.
We feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if the drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of the missing drop.
Don't look for big things. Just do small things with great love.
On the wall of her Children's Home in Calcutta was a quotation from student leader Kent M Keith, guiding other student leaders: "People are illogical, unreasonable, self-centred. Love them anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway."

Mother Teresa and Alexander the Great were two very different characters. Both went to India. Mother Teresa went to help the poor. A pacifist.

Alexander went to conquer. A fighter.

6 Statue of Alexander The Great
See the statue by day and go back to admire it illuminated at night.

(NB Heed the Wikitravel and Wikivoyage warnings about safe areas at night, the empty bazaar, deserted areas, stray dogs and if you are bitten the high cost of anti-rabies vaccine, five hundred something or others. Now you know why the UK used to have quarantine and makes dogs need passports showing they've been vaccinated.)

What you should know about Alexander

Alexander was the son of fighter Philip. As a boy, Alexander was left at home to be tutored by Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who gave Alexander a love of reading. 

Father Philip was away winning battles. Alexander was very determined, equally keen to win battles and never lost a battle. Aged only 12 or 13, he took a horse, which he called Bucephalus (meaning ox-head), which nobody else could tame, and made it his steed. Bucephalus has been called the most famous horse in history, and the reason why Alexander won his battles.

So, now, looking at the statue of Alexander on horseback, the horse is not a distraction, but a vital part of the picture of the man,

Did Alexander kill his father Philip? A bodyguard killed Philip, but for the benefit of whom?

Many courts of law today would find Alexander responsible. So, the quicker Alexander could find the bodyguard guilty of murder and kill the bodyguard, the better. 

Don't bother with a trial. Get a second bodyguard to kill the first. Forgive the second bodyguard for justified defence or anger. 

(Some people say this is what happened when Ruby assassinated the assassinator of President Kennedy.) If witnesses and historians come forward to argue about who was responsible, generations later, not your problem, the deed is done. 

It looks as though Alexander organized the assassination of his own father. In mitigation, Alexander, firstborn son, was faced with being usurped by father Philip's second wife's as yet unborn son. It gets very complicated, with two bodyguards having the same name, Alexander is the third, Philip in teh second, and if you marry an uncle , or your brother in law is also ...

Alexander did not just fear he was being usurped. Philip announced to everybody that the unborn baby would be given an ancestor's name, which was as good as making the child his successor. Both an insult and a threat.  Was the king of Persia trying to prevent Philip's plans to invade Persia?

Eventually Alexander set off on his travels. Away from the scene of his father's death. Away from scandal and accusations. Angry and determined. He wanted justice. His first major mission was to conquer Persia, which had enslaved the Greeks earlier.

En route through Turkey, south west of present day Ankara, he climbed to the top of the hill of Gordoum to the place where a chariot was tied up with the tight Gordoum knot. Legend said that whoever could unfasten the knot would conquer Asia. Legend says that Alexander, not a person who messed about, simply slashed the knot apart with his sword. He marched on.

(Roman Julius Caesar, a few centuries later, had the PR business right when he succintly summed up his arrival in Britain with the three words, veni, vidi, vici. This is translated from Latin into English as: 'I came, I saw, I conquered'.)

Alexander III considered he was stronger than the Persian leader, Darius III. Alexander considered that the Persians were leading a life of luxury. A saying attributed to Alexander is, "I would be more afraid of sheep led by a lion than I am of lions led by a sheep". This was said by somebody who lived before Alexander. Possibly Alexander was quoting a saying which had already become popular, but it fitted the situation and inspired him to fight fearlessly.

On another occasion, faced with what seemed like an impossible situation, he declared, "Nothing is impossible to him who has the determination to succeed".

 I don't have to quote the English translation exactly, because it is translated from the Greek, and my variation or yours, whether or not exactly word for word, is a perfect translation if it conveys the meaning perfectly.

Another amusing quotation from Alexander: When Alexander conquered Persia, Darius, leader of the Persians, offered to make an alliance and offered his daughter as a wife to Alexander. 

Alexander's adviser said, "If I were you, I would accept." 

Alexander replied, "If I were you, I would accept. But I am me." 

What a character!

From the point of view of non-Greeks, and pacifists, one could argue that Alexander was a war-monger, caused a lot of deaths, and invaded other countries, and promoted his own culture. On the other hand, the same seems to still be happening today. His vision was to unite the world. 

He lived a long time ago. He was before the Romans. Before Jesus. Before Mohammed. Before WWI and WWII. What difference did he make to generations afterwards? The Greek language was spoken by pockets of people in many countries. The Greek language continued to influence and is still used in many of our words today. He founded several cities named after himself. Alexandria in Egypt still bears his name on our maps of the world.

Now you know why he is an inspiration and a hero. He was the most powerful man for miles around. 

However, he died at 33. The cause is disputed. He was sick from poisoning, or poisoned food, or medicine taken to help cure the effects of a stomach upset. 

Remember what happened to Alexander's father Philip. He was at his own wedding, attacked by his own family. Watch your back. 

Remember what happened to Alexander on his travels. He died of food poisoning, one way or another. The moral is, watch your diet and watch your health.

Alexander died aged 33 in Babylon, now Iraq.

Skopje has a hotel named after Aleksander.

Hotel Aleksander, Skopje
Modern five-star hotel. Disappointing modern from a distance, on the outside (well, 75% of the city was destroyed in an earthquake). However, up close and inside, you find the atrium wall has pictures of the old bridge and other landmarks. The arched semi-circular windows form a restful, pleasing frame when you are inside looking out. (See traveller photos on Tripadvisor.)

5 Holocaust Memorial Centre for the Jews of Macedonia is adjacent to
Museum of the Macedonian Struggle - so you can visit them together.
Holocaust memorial - 7148 Jews of Macedonia were sent to Treblinka. Photos and accounts of Treblinka are in the US Holocaust Museum, Washington DC USA.


7 Giant Cross
Millennium Cross atop Mount Vodno, over Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.
Photo by Rašo.
You can take the cable car up and down.

9 MONASTERIES AND MOSQUES

Side Trips
Monasteries and churches are abundant. Top tip to the site:

Ohrid

In Ohrid: Statues of saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Cyrillic alphabet.

Ohrid, pretty hillside town overlooking Lake Ohrid, called the pearl of the Balkans.

Quaint street in Ohrid. Photo by Diego Delso in Wikipedia.

TETOVA
One hour away at Tetova in the north-west of Macedonia, near Albania, is a town full of Albanians, who at one point were fighting for a greater Albania, but in July 2018 all seemed peaceful. Go to see  the painted mosque.
Go south to Greece and see Greece's second city Thessalonika (they call it Thessaloniki). I was very impressed by the stories of Alexander the Great, whose tomb has not been found, hidden, like the Egyptian pharaohs' tombe which were concealed in pyramids, hidden from grave robbers and successors who might want to erase him from history. The amphitheatre, where he killed his father at his father's wedding to a second wife who was pregnant with a son who Philip announced would be his successor, not Alexander.



Painted mosque at Tetova. Photo author: Делфина in Wikivoyage.

Šarena Džamija (Шарена Џамија)
The name means painted mosque. The outside shows flowers, a unique painting of Mecca, and Mohammed's tomb. Instead of a dome, it has an inner courtyard containing a tomb and filled with flowers.

Macedonia seems to have a love-hate relationship with neighbouring Greece to the south. Macedonia decided to name their airport, Alexander The Great, but Greece objected. A phrase sprang to my mind, from a Country and Western song, 'Why didn't I think of that?'

10 Wineries
Popova Kula in Demir Kapeja.
Pop over and feel cooler in the Popova Kula winery. The winery has striking architecture, a square tower, an upper terrace, a restaurant and accommodation.

Tikves in Kavadarci - started in the 1800s, merged with others to become the biggest in Macedonia and SE Europe. Makes  24 wines and brandy. The restaurant has brick walls and a big brick fireplace. Winery shop. Winery open Monda to Sunday. April to October. Oak barrels. To visit the vineyards, book one week in advance for a minimum of six people.

Useful Websites

For more information on sightseeing, monasteries, wines, caves and carnivals, the official Macedonia tourist board website

TRAVEL WEBSITES
MACEDONIA

http://www.exploringmacedonia.com (slide show of wineries)
http://winesofmacedonia.mk/tikves-2/ (more detail on winery)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Macedonia
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Macedonia_(country)
https://wikitravel.org/en/Republic_of_Macedonia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skopje
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Skopje

HISTORY
https://web.archive.org/web/20070310192728/http://pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=53&keyword_id=9&title=Death%20of%20Philip%3A%20Murder%20or%20Assassination%3F

GREECE
visitgreece.gr
Tomb of Phlip II at Vergina, Northern Greece, museum and archaeological site:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergina
Jewish Museum, Thessaloniki, Greece
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g189473-d243215-Reviews-Jewish_Museum_of_Thessaloniki-Thessaloniki_Thessaloniki_Region_Central_Macedonia.html

USA
US Holocaust Memorial Museum Washington DC, USA
https://www.ushmm.org/information/visit-the-museum/admission-tickets

QUOTATIONS

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa

SAFETY UPDATES

Canada: travel.gc.ca

UK:  https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/macedonia

USA: travel.state.gov/content/travel

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Hear Holocaust Survivors At Memorials & Events in Harrow, Holocaust Museums Poland & Worldwide

Problem
What is the difference between a holocaust and a massacre and what will I see at a Holocaust or Anne Frank Museum or memorial event?

The term was coined to refer to the extermination of Jewish people across the continent of Europe. (And also refers to the use of gas chambers at Auschwitz.)

Why would anybody go to Auschwitz or Birkenau and how do they differ from other camps?

I did not understand the significance or scale of the Holocaust until you visit Birkenau, a couple of miles down the road. Huge hangars for each nationality. Not just a massacre of people from one village or town or city, dreadful though that tragedy might be, nor refusing entry, nor expelling people, but the extermination of a group of people right across a continent.

Anne Frank
The Anne Frank Foundation sets out to try to stop a process of gradual victimisation of groups of people. You might think that the holocaust was an entirely different event, because of the scale, or you might think that it was the result of creeping prejudice, discrimination which leads ultimately to decimation.

Harrow Arts Centre
Modern holocaust commemoration events such as the one held in the Harrow Arts Centre Hatch End, yesterday, have involved other groups. I normally visit Harrow Arts Cetnre for a Writers' Cirlce, and various jollier events. I went to a previous year's holocaust memorial event when we had a girl of Romany descent, who was a pupil at a local school, reading a poem after a brief account of place names and events.

I have heard three different opinions. One says, commemorating the holocaust alone ignores the suffering of others, and later events.

The answer to that is that the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, when I visited it, had an exhibition at the end about other groups and other events. Each group's survivors and descendants should and does sympathise with the other victims.

I have also heard the opposite view, that the holocaust was on a totally different scale, and that each event should be commemorated by those concerned. A commemoration of WWI should focus on that.

Other museums and days, such as can Remembrance Day in November, could and should recall that event and all subsequent wards, soldiers and survivors.

On a practical note, each museum and event attracts more participants and observers each year. This year the holocaust commemoration at Harrow Arts Centre in Hatch End was on a Monday, rather than the Saturday when I expected it. Being on the mailing list, I was sent notification of other events through the year, comedies, pantomimes and so on, then the Holocaust memorial event. The seats were free, but had to be booked online.

Why Book A Free Seat
Why not book early? The same dilemma as with making a restaurant booking. If you are very busy or in poor health, or travelling a lot, then decide not to go very near the date, or cannot go because you come down with flu on the day, you have taken up a space which could have been used by somebody else. However, on the day, if anybody wanted to go, the capacity was already filled. So if you wish to attend next year, apply early.

Poland and Camp Location
On a related note, the Polish government and the guides to museums in Poland want to ensure that although camps are called Nazi camps, not Polish camps, to make it clear the camps were run by the Nazi government although they were in Poland, near the border where the Naxi invasion took hold, and where the Nazis made their HQ the small, pretty historic city of Krakow, easily conquered, unlike Warsaw, further away and larger and better able to resist.

Warsaw
If you wish to visit the capital, Warsaw, you have many sites connected with WWII, the holocaust and Jews and the orphanage, and films you may have seen.

Diary Dates
If you wish to attend a commemoration or plan to participate or organize one, now is the time to note dates in your diary for next year.

November is remembered for the end of WWI. January is remembered for the liberation of Auschwitz.

Catch up on forthcoming and recent past events in Harrow with Harrow Times, Optima and other free and local newspapers and magazines for local areas.

Why Go
There's always something new to learn.
Why not go? Because it might be depressing? If you want to end on an uplifting note, I have three:
The saying which rape survivors have been taught to repeat so they stops eeing themselves as victims:
1 I am a survivor.
2 The video of the lovely lady pianist who lost many members of her family but survived with her son and in her nineties was still happily playing the pinao daily, entertaining her lifelong friends and visitors.
3 The phrase used to end the poetry evening organised by Jewish Poetry Society organiser Judy Karbritz: As night follows day, so life must go on. Ah yes, 'the darkest hour is before dawn'. I was surprised when I re-read the article. I remembered it as the opposite and more positive, 'As day follows night, so life must go on'.

Places To Visit - When and Where
Harrow Arts Centre Holocaust Memorial Date (January 2019)
Anne Frank Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Auschwitz, near Krakow, Poland

Useful Websites
HARROW, N W LONDON, UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrow_Arts_Centre
http://www.harrow.gov.uk/site/custom_scripts/php/events/events_info.php?eid=ev-1296
http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/15904140.Holocaust_survivors_to_connect_with_students_as_part_of_educational_programme/
http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/15906413.Poets_reflect_on_Holocaust_Memorial_Day/?ref=mr&lp=11
http://www.optimamagazine.co.uk/read/features/history-and-heritage/1251-behind-the-barbed-wire
UK
visitbritain.org
POLAND
http://auschwitz.org
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/poland
USA
http://www.holocaustandhumanity.org (USA)
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/before-1933
http://www.visit-usa.com (Links to all States you might visit)
WORLDWIDE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_memorials_and_museums

For more details see my previous posts.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, speaker. See my previous posts on Poland and Jews and Anne Frank and Holocaust museums and statues. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

What's Free In Washington DC?

Problem
What's free in Washington DC?

Answer
The Holocaust Museum. Not everybody's idea of a fun morning or afternoon, but certainly fascinating and educational. Plus a must for anybody with a survivalist personality who always wants to know how did the survivors survive.

A recent revelation in the news is novel featuring the story of people who hid in a cave.  I saw a movie about this or a similar story on Singapore Airlines.

The novel is 344 Days Underground, written by Valeriy Gritsiv, grandson of a survivor. This is about caves. I think the movie was about sewers.

The Holocaust Museum attracts historians, groups, schools, people trying to trace ancestors. In fact, it's so busy from spring to autumn that they issue timed tickets. You can order tickets on line but have to pay a small fee (currently a dollar) to the online ticket agency.

At London's major art museums, the major queues (in the USA called line-ups) are for the much publicised temporary exhibitions, the impressionists, whatever. You can get in relatively quickly to see the general collection, perhaps whilst waiting for a timed ticket. However, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC it is the other way round; most people want to see the whole of the main exhibition about WWII.

Ticket times and costs
The winter is a good time to visit the Holocaust museum because it is less busy. Also many of the other city outdoors highlights are closed or less attractive in winter time.

https://www.ushmm.org/information/visit-the-museum/admission-tickets

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

News On Babi Yar Nazis and Auschwitz survivor, Eva, one of the twins

Eva Mozes Kor, one of a pair of twins who both survived Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz. She is author of a book about her life and on forgiveness. Photo from Wikipedia and Flickr, courtesy of CANDLES Holocaust Museum and Education Centre, Indiana, USA 

Two people are accused of being part of a group involved in the events in Babi Yar in WWII, but others say there is not sufficient evidence the accused were involved.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4930280/Suspected-members-Hitler-s-death-squads-identified.html

How much relief is awarded by bringing people to justice, and how much relief can be found by releasing the hatred and resentment and forgiving?

The Story of Twin Eva Mozes Kor
I saw a striking video about Eva, a woman who was one of twins, experimented on by Mengele in Auschwitz. In the video she describes how she asked a former Nazi to write and sign a document describing what he saw. Later she wrote and said she forgave him, and she said that she felt much better, empowered afterwards.

After watching the video on Facebook I discovered that not only did she meet a camp attendant who used to watch the people dying in the gas chamber, she adopted as a grandson a descendant of camp commander Höss.

Further searches revealed that she had written a book and set up an educational foundation in Indiana, USA. She grew up in Transylvania in Romania.

https://candlesholocaustmuseum.org/book/surviving-the-angel-of-death.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Mozes_Kor

Author Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Elie Wiesel Memorial House and Sights In His Birthplace, Sighet, Romania

Elie Wiesel House, in blue, in Romania.

Problem
Elie Wiesel died only last year, in July 2016. Where can you see a memorial to Romanian born, Nobel prizewinner Elie Wiesel who wrote more than forty books including Night, mainly about the Holocaust. Is there a statue or house? Yes.

Answers
1 USA
Plaque of his saying on the Jewish Museum.

2 ROMANIA
Elie Wiesel Memorial House.

The house is located in his birthplace village, Sight.

Story
He is credited with having introduced the word Holocaust to mean what it now means, the whole burning of, an entire burning of, not just one body, but a huge number of people from not one country but almost every country in Europe.

Picture of President George Bush, and the Dalai Lama, greet Elie Wiesel. From Wikipedia.

Places to visit

1 Casa M e m o r a l i a  Elie Wiesel (Spaces inserted to prevent the automatic spell checker turning the word into memorabilia). Little blue house whose picture you can see in Wikipedia and TripAdvisor. Suggested visit 30 minutes to an hour (that means an hour for me). This house was mentioned in Elie Wiesel's book Night. Interesting that it is painted blue, which seems to be the popular local colour, also features in the Merry Cemetery.

2 House of Sculptor Patras, who carved the wooden crosses in the Merry Cemetery. His son continued it. The merry cemetery has blue memorials carved by Patras and after he died by his son. On the graves the colour blue is soothing and jolly. Black added shows somebody died early in life.

3 Sighet Village Museum (Outdoor Heritage Museum)
A reconstructed village with real buildings brought from other locations and gathered together. Includes one Jewish house.

Sighet Village Museum, Strada Muzeului Number 1, Sighetu Marmatiei 435500, Romania. 

Tel CONTACT 

+40 262 314 299

4 Memorial of the Victims of Communism and of The Resistance.

5 Short drive to Merry Cemetery.
Drive 10 miles, about 20 minutes, to the Merry Cemetery where sculptor Patras carved wooden crosses featuring portraits the joyful moments of the lives with humorous sayings. The symbolic colours are black for an early death, blue, yellow, and lots of the soothing colour of blue for everybody.

Tips
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/elie-wiesel

TOURIST BOARD WEBSITE AND OFFICES
http://romaniatourism.com/sighetu-marmatiei.html#museums

United Kingdom

12 Harley Street;
London W1G 9PG
Telephone: (+44) 207.224.36.92
E-mail (Click on the blue link. In case the link doesn't work, it is romaniatravel@btconnect.com)

United States of America

600 Third Avenue, suite 224
New York, NY 10016
Telephone: 1 212.545.8484
E-mail ( info@Romaniatourism.com )
www.RomaniaTourism.com

The tourist board also has offices in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia.

In China the tourist board lists no office, only an email.

Elie Wiesel is seventh along from left, middle row. Picture from Wiki.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See other posts on this blog on the Merry Cemetery; Elie Wiesel, Romania, Learning Romanian. Please share your favourite posts.