Hi there,

Lots to tell you about Skopje (pronounced Skop-yuh), Macedonia. We speant two nights in the wonderfully named 'Hostel-Hostel' and loved it. Speant the first night chatting to the other backpackers and tried homemade rikeya (burny spirit).

We did a day trip to beautiful Lake Matka and took a boat up a cave high along the rock face (I know even I went into the cave, there were bats and gold in the walls!!). The water was so green (see pictures).

The next day was spent walking around Skopje. We visited the 500-year-old bazar where we bought some lovely silver jewellery from a great shopowner who then sat us down for Russian tea and told us all about the place. We found another baklava shop and I (suzy) got a big box :)

We wandered up to the ruins of a castle fortress where we climbed into one of the watch towers where there were views of the whole city, it was amazing. We pondered over a spider-like building which we later discovered was the central post office! Funny since sinead had been trying to post a postcard for days!

Sad to leave Skopje, the people were so nice and we had lots of fun.

Will tell you all about Ohrid soon. Currently typing from an internet cafe in Tirana, Albania.

Love you all,

Suzsin