Walks

Walking through Ohrid and Skopje in 2015

Kale Fortess Skopje

After a good walking season in the spring, summer and autumn of 2014 we took the print versions off the shelves just before the winter. We are reaching most of the people online anyway. The new Ohrid City Walk and the renewed Skopje City Walk have been eagerly ordered as PDF and printed at home, and/or stored on the iPad. Even in the winter the occasional brochure has been ordered.

New walking season 2015

With the cheap Wizz Air flights, more and more tourists visit Skopje for a city trip. Now that summer is on it’s way, Ohrid with it’s clear blue lake is also getting popular again. The first city walks for this spring and summer season have already been sold. Let’s make the most out of the upcoming beautiful walking months!

Let the tourists arrive!

Bit Pazar Green Market Skopje

While the last spring rains are still hanging over Macedonia, we are ready for the summer. Firstly, our new website is in the air, as you can see. We are no longer Skopje City Walk, we are Walking Macedonia. Because besides Skopje, also Ohrid now has a brand new city walking guide for tourists who like to explore cities on foot.

The beautifully designed city walks of Walking Macedonia, interesting information, photos and all previous blogs can be found on our new website: www.walkingmacedonia.com. And you will be able to purchase the city walks in one click, which will then be directly sent to your mailbox. Discovering Macedonia has never been easier!

Ohrid City Walk is taking shape

ohrid lake

Greetings from Ohrid! It’s Sunday morning and we are sitting in a cafe with our laptops, working on the Ohrid City Walk. In the last two weeks, we wrote our first draft and yesterday we walked along the route to check all the information. Now we are enjoying a cup of Turkish coffee, while at the same time rewriting some parts of the text. Later today, we will walk the route again to be sure everything is perfect.

In 100 days, the second edition of the Skopje City Walk will be published. In addition, we want to bring out the Ohrid City Walk simultaneously. But to keep up with the modern world, the Ohrid City Walk will not be published on paper, but as an app. That will still take quite some doing. So while working hard, we keep our fingers crossed, because for now it all remains exciting.

Well, we are going back to work!

Skopje City Walk 2.0

skopje 2.0

What should definitely be included in the update of the Skopje City Walk, according to you?

The fun thing about Skopje is that it is a city in development. This was already the case before the project Skopje 2014, but is all the more so now. At an alarming rate, the center of the city is taken to task. Large and small changes stack together and contribute to a new sight of the city.

Skopje City Walk cannot let this go by unseen. We are working hard on an update, to be ready in the spring for yet another tourist season. The number of visitors to Macedonia and Skopje continues to rise and thus we expect a great demand for the city walk again this summer.

We are interested to hear your ideas about which sights or information about Skopje must be included in the new version. What are the key ingredients that one should not ignore when visiting Skopje?

If you have not ‘walked The Walk’, we would like to hear what your motivation to purchase would be. How will Skopje City Walk in your opinion become essential for a tourist in Skopje?

An autumnal city walk

autumn in skopje

We walk onto the square. It is early November, but the sun is shining delightful. The fountain of the Warrior on Horse is being covered with thick plastic to protect it from the cold of winter that will soon arrive. Next to the entrance of GTC mall it smells like a log fire. Men are roasting sweet chestnuts. We get a small bag for only 20 denari. While peeling, we walk to the Vardar. The half-finished ship in the river promises to become an attractive restaurant, but for that we will have to wait for spring.

In a bit, dusk will fall. We pass by the new pedestrian bridges and walk along the promenade the Kej. In which restaurant will we order a hot chocolate? This chocolate treat is different than in any other country we have ever been to. It is not hot chocolate milk, it is not hot chocolate pudding, it is simply ‘hot chocolate’. A perfect way to warm yourself up after a beautiful Skopje city walk in autumn.

Changing city walks

newsquareskopje

Both the walks through the old town and the new center are ready! At least, as far as possible. Because the city is constantly changing. New statues, new buildings and new bridges arise. New museums open, old museums close down, current museum are being rebuilt or change their opening times and admission fees.

When we cross the stone bridge to the old town, even the whole intersection seems to get a remake. But we have everything checked and double checked, the route is at its best and we provide the latest information. This is the best we’ve got. It is time for the final touches. We will just have to do a comprehensive update next year!

City walks in words

partizanska

We have browsed the streets of Skopje for months, years even. But when we start to craft the directions for our city walks, it turns out to be more complicated than we thought it would be. We write down what we remember, and with this draft in hand, we take off. It’s time to look at the city through the eyes of a first visitor. We know what we like and dislike in other city walk guides, so now it’s up to us to proof that we can do better.