Things to see and do Skopje

Dedicated to St. Nicholas, this Orthodox monastery (Шишевски Манастир/Šiševski Manastir) is located at about 480 m above sea level, 160 m above the lake. Occupied by a monk who sometimes offers coffee or a glass of rakija, it was built around a Serbo-Byzantine church built around 1345, probably by Prince Marko. Some original frescoes remain (hermit saints and warrior saints), but most of the decoration dates from the ^16th century. Among the scenes of the life of St. Nicholas, note the female characters with particularly generous breasts.

Located just south of Macedonia Street, this museum (Музеј на Град Скопје/Muzej na Grad Skopje) is moving: since 1970, it has been housed in the former railway station dating from 1940 and heavily damaged by the earthquake of July 26, 1963. On the façade, the hands of the large clock remained frozen at 5:17 a.m., the hour when the main tremor (6.1 on the Richter scale) destroyed a large part of the city, killing 1,070 people. Alas, this museum, founded in 1949, suffers from funding problems. Works and objects are poorly presented, and the museum is sometimes closed without notice. It does, however, house an important collection of works on the history of the conurbation: archaeology, history, art history, ethnography, architecture and design. The archaeology department is particularly rich. One of its highlights is the astonishing fragment of a Neolithic statuette of the "Adam of Govrlevo" in a seated position, with his phallus still erect after 7,000 years. The permanent exhibition on town planning features the major project to rebuild the city after the 1963 earthquake. The rooms devoted to ethnology showcase the country's minorities, with beautiful Albanian, Roma, Aromanian, Serbian and Jewish costumes. In addition, the museum has several branches on the eastern bank, including the Partisan Underground Workshop Museum and the Stara Čaršija exhibition at the Suli Caravanserai.

This Orthodox monastery (Манастир Свети Никита/Manastir Sveti Nikita) houses remarkable ^14th-century frescoes. Dedicated to the holy martyr Nicetas the Goth (^4th century), it was founded in the ^12th century and restored in 1308 by the Serbian king Milutin. The catholicon (main church) has a typical Byzantine exterior decoration made of layers of stone and red brick. The interior is decorated with frescoes made in 1324 by the great Greek artists Michail Astrapas and Eftychios, whose works can be found in Greece, Serbia, Kosovo and Northern Macedonia. At the altar level stand the Fathers of the Church in adoration before the Lamb, a reminder of the sacrifice of Christ. Above, Christ in sakkos (Byzantine liturgical garment) administers the Divine Liturgy (Eucharist). The south wall contains the best preserved and most detailed elements: various saints, miracles of Christ and the Passion cycle. Part of the frescoes was restored at the end of the ^15th century by painters from Kastoria (Greek Macedonia) and the monastery of Treskavec (near Prilep) in respect of the original work. Some alterations were made to the representations of the great feasts (northern part), of Saints Peter and John the Baptist and on part of the upper area of the altar. New frescoes were made in 1846-1847 by Dičo Zografos, a great mijak painter from Debar. The latter intervened on the dome and painted the icons of the iconostasis.

This Orthodox monastery (Марков Манастир/Markov Manastrir) houses remarkable ^14th-century frescoes. It is named after the Serbian prince Marko Kraljević (1335-1395), a vassal of the Ottomans and the last Christian ruler of the region. It was founded by his father, Vukašin Mrnjavčević, in 1346. Around the catholicon (main church) dedicated to St. Demetrios, there is a pleasant garden, a konak (inn) with a small museum, lodgings, a campanile, a well, workshops, a bakery, a mill and St. Mark's chapel. The monastery is remarkable in that it was one of the few Christian buildings preserved during the conquest of Skopje by the Ottomans in 1392. An important intellectual center until the ^19th century, it has been occupied again since 1991 by a small community of nuns preparing a very good rakija. Built between 1346 and 1377, the catholicon follows a simple cross plan, with a narthex (vestibule), a central dome supported by four columns and a smaller dome on its western side. An exonarthex was added in 1830, by the Ottoman aristocrat Hamzi Paşa. The interior houses a beautiful carved wooden iconostasis (some of whose icons were stolen in 2013).

Frescoes. The walls are entirely covered by the original ^14th-century frescoes, made by anonymous painters and on the whole well preserved. A vast cycle is dedicated to the twelve great Orthodox feasts: Nativity of the Mother of God, Nativity of Christ, Entry into Jerusalem, Dormition of the Mother of God, etc. Next to the iconostasis is Christ Pantocrator ("Almighty") wearing the attributes of the Byzantine emperors and surrounded by two archangels and St. John the Baptist with wings, with the Virgin Queen on her right with her mantle embroidered with large crosses, the scenes representing Saints Demetrios (above the entrance door) and Nicholas, as well as that of the Massacre of the Innocents (an episode recounted in the Gospel according to Matthew, according to which Herod, king of Judea, ordered the murder of all children under two years of age after the birth of Jesus), which illustrates the concern for realism of the painters of the time. Finally, on the north wall, the portrait of Marko Kraljević and that of Vukašin Mrnjavčević were rediscovered on either side of the entrance door during restoration work in 1963. King Marko is depicted in royal attire, burnt ochre color, decorated with pearls and precious stones, holding in his hand the text relating the foundation of the monastery in Old Serbian Slavonic.

Located at 600 m above sea level, in the middle of an oak forest, this Orthodox monastery (Кучевишки Манастир/Kučeviški Manastir) houses amazing frescoes from the ^16th and ^17th centuries. Dedicated to the archangels Michael and Gabriel, it was founded in 1330 by the Serbian lord Radoslav Hlapen, and then repeatedly modified. The catholicon (main church), in particular, was equipped with a narthex around 1630. The most surprising parts of its frescoes are on the upper parts of the east and west walls. In the great scene of the Last Judgment, the artists give a very free interpretation of the "Vision of the Four Beasts" from the Book of Daniel announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. Each ruler of a "perishing kingdom" is associated with a wild beast: a lion for Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon), a bear for Porus (a Greek king of India), a wolfhound for Cyrus (Persia) and a leopard for Alexander the Great (Macedonia). This composition is also a rare example of Christian art in which Ottoman Turks - here wearing the fez - and Jews who arrived from Spain, here in the company of Moses, are represented. Opposite is the Tree of Jesse, which presents the presumed genealogy of Christ from Jesse, father of King David. In the form of a climbing vine are 88 portraits and 22 scenes. The first row at the bottom, partially erased, contains the portraits of eleven pagan figures from antiquity considered to be precursors of Christianity. Six have been identified: the philosophers Socrates (^5th from the left), Plato (^7th) and Aristotle (^8th), the physician Galen (^9th), a sibyl linked to the cult of Apollo (^10th) and the historian Plutarch (^11th).

Cryptograms. The church itself was repainted in 1591 with an incredible number of scenes and details in every corner. The windowsills, for example, have cryptograms that can only be deciphered with a code kept in the Serbian monastery of the Patriarchate of Peć, now in Kosovo. Some scenes are unique or very rare: the forty martyrs of Sebaste (dome), Judas plotting with the Jewish priests (very damaged), Judas vomiting wine in the scene of the communion of the Apostles, Arius, the inspirer of Arianism that tore the Church apart in the^fifth century, being devoured by a monster in hell, etc. As for the narthex, the artists who worked here are anonymous. But the presence of a rare depiction of St. Achilles of Larissa indicates that at least some of these late ^{sixteenth-century} artists came from Thessaly, Greece.

Nestled in a forest, 750 m above sea level, this Orthodox monastery (Љубански Mанастир/Ljubanski Manastir) is dedicated to Saint Nicholas. It was founded in 1337 by a Serbian noblewoman, destroyed in the ^18th century and rebuilt in the ^mid-19th century. Restored in 1998, it now houses a small community of nuns. The visit is especially worthwhile for the icons in the catholicon (main church), made in 1853 by the great painter Dičo Zografos, and for the 5 km trail leading to Mount Svinjski Kamen, at 1,628 m above sea level. The nuns are good advice for this hike.