Around 8:30 we got the hotel reception to order us a taxi to take us into downtown Skopje for a quick look around. The taxi deposited us right near a big open square in the center of Skopje. We soon discovered that it was called Alexander the Great Square and had a whole series of extravagant statues of Alexander and other historical figures. Indeed as the morning progressed we noted that Skopje had a real taste for super sized statues of various figures.

We spent some time looking around the city. We took a walk through the old section of the city and wandered around the hilltop castle. We capped off this very short visit to an interesting town with a walk to a local shopping mall for some groceries before taking a taxi back to the hotel.

We spent the afternoon driving into the mountains and crossing the border with Bulgaria. The border crossing from Macedonia was a little more involved than some we have experienced in recent months as both the Macedonian exit station and the Bulgarian entrance station had trouble coming to grips with a truck that was not a truck but a camper.

The crossing took so long that by the time we had completed proceedings and were on our way in Bulgaria it was getting late and so we eagerly accepted an abandoned gas station as out nights camping spot.