The 2010s city on the Vardar: the back story

About The 2010s city on the Vardar: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Skopje Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Walk along the Vardar today and you see a city centre unlike any other in Europe: neoclassical and baroque-style museums and ministries, bridges lined with statues, monumental fountains and a triumphal arch, almost all built in the 2010s.

A new centre

Between 2010 and the late 2010s, a large building programme added dozens of new buildings and façades and hundreds of sculptures to the centre on both banks of the Vardar. Many earlier modernist buildings were given new classical-style façades.

Macedonia Square

The square is dominated by the Warrior on a Horse, a bronze equestrian statue on a tall column rising from a fountain, unveiled in 2011, with music and lights in the evening. Porta Macedonia, a triumphal arch decorated with reliefs, stands at the southern side of the square.

It is a city centre that is impossible to forget.

Along the river

On the north bank, the Archaeological Museum and its neighbours present long colonnades to the river. Ships built as floating restaurants and hotels, styled like old galleons, are moored on the Vardar.

Bridges and statues

New pedestrian bridges, the Art Bridge and the Bridge of Civilisations, are lined with statues of artists, writers and historical figures from the region’s past, inviting you to stop and read the names.

Seeing it at night

The centre is at its most striking after dark, when the buildings, bridges and fountains are lit and families stroll along the river.

Our advice: walk the centre twice, once by day to look at the details and once at night for the lights. Start on Macedonia Square, cross the Art Bridge, follow the north bank past the Archaeological Museum and return over the Stone Bridge.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with The 2010s city on the Vardar: the back story before you go.