NoMac2024

We've been waiting for a rainy day to explore a couple of art museums but I don't think the rain  will ever come. So yesterday Stephen and I went to two art museums housed in ancient Turkish bath buildings (Hammans) in the old Turkish Bazaar in the center of Skopje.  The first one, the National Galleryy is housed in the Daut Pasha Hamman. It was built in the 15th century and is the second largest Hamman in the city. We were the only people in the museum and I was very impressed with the collection. It    was mostly traditional paintings and sculpture The baths were beautifully restored, leaving much of the original stone work but adding  white walls to brighten it up and allow a place for the art to be hung.                                        This little fella looks a lot like my friend Hamid, the Afghan boy in Lowell  whose family we have been helping si...

                                               The stained glass rotunda in the lobby of the museum. Today we went to the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, a massive three story building on the Vardar River in the center of Skopje.  No photos were allowed inside the exhibits, and for this you should be grateful:  most of the museum was lined with one wax statue after another -- visages of patriotic revolutionaries who fought for an independent Macedonia for more than a century.  One exhibit showed a guy hanging from the ceiling with his distraught wife and children (in wax) crying as his feet dangled before them.  The major event in this struggle for independence  was the Illinden uprising . (liilenden is the name of one of the major roads in Skopje). In 1903, a group of revolutionaries, mostly from the southeast corner of ...

  We headed out of Sofia Bulgaria around noon on a glorious sunny day and plugged in google maps. But we didn't plug in the audio... so we missed the exit we were suppose to take to Skopje. A few swear words were spoken. But Stephen looked at the map and noticed that the Rila Monastery, as seen on Rick Steeve's Europe was not far away, so we went for it.  Up and up and Up we went through villages that hadn't changed much in the past century. But it was so worth the ride.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and here's their blurb: Rila Monastery Rila Monastery was founded in the 10th century by St John of Rila, a hermit canonized by the Orthodox Church. His ascetic dwelling and tomb became a holy site and were transformed into a monastic complex which played an important role in the spiritual and social life of medieval Bulgaria. Destroyed by fire at the beginning of the 19th century, the complex was rebuilt between 1834 and 1862. A characteristic example of the Bulgaria...

 One of the many highlights of Sofia was the local history museum, starting from the dawn of civilization in Europe to Marie Antoinette's gift to the first  Bulgarian king. Outside there were fountains pouring spring fed  mineral water, hot and cold for anyone that wanted to fill a bottle (And a place to pee if you drank too much!) Inside and out,  this building was stunning.  Bulgaria claims that this part of the world  was the center of the earliest European civilization. Early signs of farming, animal husbandry and my favorite, POTTERY, were found in the in the Sofia area dating back to the end of the 7th century BC. (There is an amazing archeological museum here if old stuff is your thing.) 7th Century BC These bowls were discovered in 1969 near Sofia. The golden browl was placed inside the ceramic vessel and the two were covered by the bronze cauldron..They think it is a symbolic grave with the golden bowl dating back to the 8th or 9th century BC. earl...