Hello, my name is Susan and I’m a 62 year old woman that retired and I sold my house and I’m traveling the world on my bicycle. I hope you will join me for my adventure. Thank you. Good morning. I’m here in Scopia, North Macedonia and going to be heading out on the Eurov 11. But I just thought that I would ride you over the stone bridge, which is one of the tourist attractions here. Um I think the other thing that people talk about with Scopia is um all the statues. There’s so many statues. Um apparently when they um came a country and uh separated from Yugoslavia, they got some money and they put a lot of that money into statues. And so there were thousands of statues in Scopia. You can’t walk 20 feet without seeing a different one. So, but it’s kind of cool. Um, so yeah, we’ll just uh ride over here. Somewhere over here is uh Scanderbeck Square. Yeah. So pretty cool. Cool little city, but I think that you really get to know the country by getting away from the big cities. And so I’m kind of looking forward to getting out of the city and exploring the countryside. So yeah, let’s see. Looks like a little market area here. And uh I don’t think I want to go up there. I think we’re just going to have to miss Scanderbeck Square. He’s a Albanian hero that fought off the Ottomans and the 1400s. So if you go to Albania, you see a lot of Scanderbeck statues and um earlier this spring I went to the castle of Scanderbeck in Albania with my son. Uh so yeah, I’ll just post a picture in here of uh That’s Scanderbeck statue. A lot of people taking pictures. Very cool. So, we’ll go back on one of the other bridges. Yeah, there’s a view of Scopia. So, lots of people out walking looking at the statues. There’s a tour group morning. Yeah. Very cool. All right. Now, let’s figure out how to get out of this city. Now, I can go by the river for a bit. There’s another boat. Shoot. I found the city to be very affordable. Um, the lady at the grocery store I went to last night ripped me off. Didn’t give me the right change. Then I read the reviews and apparently she does that when somebody is obviously a tourist. It wasn’t much. It was like 200 um North Macanian daer. But um I mean it’s less than $2, but still kind of gives you a bad feeling. Here’s another old boat. So, there’s at least three old boats along the river here. Cool. That one’s in disrepair. Um, all right. Well, I’m going to figure out where I’m going here real quick and then I willh check in later. Well, I’m finally on the outskirts of town. It always takes longer to get out of cities than you think it’s going to. I think because all the traffic lights and stop signs and just traffic in general and I don’t know always seem to miss a couple of turns. So, but we are out uh gone about 10 miles a little over and now in the in the countryside south of Scodia. Uh I think the name of this town is Gazib Baba. Um so yeah um the helicopter that’s been flying over assume they’re not looking for me. And so in general, um I’m expecting it to be a pretty flat day, which will be nice. I think there’s a couple of hills, um to climb, maybe midday. So, uh or yeah, so we’ll see. But overall, I think it’s going to be a pretty easy day of just spinning and trying to stay off of trafficked roads. Morning. One of the things pretty much from Croatia once I got away from the coast all the way to here, it’s just so much litter. I think they don’t have a good system or the system for garbage is too expensive. So, people just dump their trash. And it’s such beautiful country, but there needs to be a movement in this part of Europe to uh stop littering. Uh yesterday when I was going into Scopia, this car in front of me just like, you know, threw a plastic bottle out the window. There was all kinds of traffic around and it just made me think that a lot of Europe and definitely in the United States somebody did that people would be stopping them and saying pick it up. Um but here I guess it’s just the culture. um that and the air quality um in southern Kosovo and in North M Macedonia. Those are really my only two complaints. Other than that, the people are lovely. The scenery for the most part is beautiful. Um there have been some bike lanes Um, and so yeah, this is the Eurov 11 and I will be on it. All right, so we’re going to go left here and go along the lake. Fall back. eat. Yeah, I am too. Romantic. Is there a place? Hello. fun day of riding. I met up with Tess and Tessa and John. Um, and we rode 50 miles to Gradsco, I think is the name of this town. And the only place to stay here is this little hostel. And the lady that owns the place is is lovely. She’s very sweet and show just showed us to our rooms. Um, yeah, it’s a small room, slanted ceiling. I hope I don’t hit my head. You can see outside. And um there’s a restaurant just on the other side. So, we’re going to meet there for dinner. And uh so, yeah, this is um kind of half the distance to the border. The border was 100 miles and I think originally I’d planned on going a little further today. We we got into town about 4:00, but this is just fine. And so we’re going to ride together again tomorrow and then they’re going to go a different way once we hit the Greece border. Um, but yeah, a lot lot of fun, good conversation, good stories, and uh they’re from Wales. So, I actually cycled really near where they live when I went through Wells earlier this year, and I think they started riding from that area. So, uh, yeah, we’re all going to end up in Istanbul, but we’ve got different routes once we hit Greece. So, all right, I uh we’ll check in in the morning. [Music] [Music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music]
2 Comments
love the info! and some companions!!
I enjoyed the riding commentary today! Loved the horse and buggy