Just before I left Skopje, I made the most terrible faux pas. I saw a restaurant festooned in the Macedonian national colours, with the first letter of the country prominently displayed. Mmmm, local cuisine, I thought. It wasn't until I had digested my Big Mac, large fries and coke that I realised my hideous mistake.
My onward journeys have mostly been interesting, but this one was the exception, going through the night, seemingly stuck in second gear as we climbed up towards the Bulgarian border, Sofia being the highest capital in Europe. A long and tedious delay at the border, and I dozed off occasionally until the clatter of early-morning trams indicated our arrival.
This is the first really big city of my trip, larger than the population of Tirana and Sarajevo combined, and perhaps because of the altitude, there is a freshness in the air. There is no discernible "old town"- perhaps this is a relief as a further twisting cobble-laden ascent to a citadel would in all probability blister my toes into something resembling, oh, I'll think of think of something they will resemble later.
This is not to say that Sofia is not without interest, and beauty. The Orthodox churches have their own mystique, and whilst the unsure singing of the priest in front of all the gold and icons may not have had the polyphonic allure of the simultaneous call to prayer of muezzins across a city, there's a spirituality in these places that even a casual atheist can appreciate.
A couple of the old, even ancient churches have their lights hidden under megatonnes of bushels: the church of St George is almost entombed between three sides of the Sherton Hotel and the Presidency building, and dates from the 2nd or even 3rd century BC, when it was used by the romans as a basilica. It was a pleasant place to spend half-an-hour recovering from the bus journey. The Sveta Petka Samardjiska Church was marooned in a shopping centre, with its roof peering into a central reservation. One would almost think that the communist regime wanted to hide them from view, were it not for the fact that huge cathedrals and other churches abound in the place.
I went out on a tram at random to the end of the line and back, unsurprised by the unending tower blocks, and although there was some variety in style, I felt as though I could have been in the suburbs of any major Eastern European city. The Bulgarian people, it has been said, appear to be the gloomiest I have come across on this journey. They have, in their wisdom, elected their former exiled boy-king Simeon II, who is nattily rebranded as Simeon Saxecoburggottski as Prime Minister, and whilst, in theory Bulgaria is set to join the EU in 2007, a sense of disillusionment can be felt.
I haven't been anywhere nearly long enough to get a real feel for any of the countries I have found myself in. It's an exercise in putting my toe in the water, and one day maybe I'll come back to bathe properly.
