The Kale

The Fortress of Skopje is known as the Kale. It offers good views of the city and it's free to enter. Of course, that is if you are allowed to go in. When we went, the police would not let us inside and we had to settle with viewing the exterior, which is really where all its beauty lies because supposedly the interior is more like a park. It really reminded us a lot of Ohrid. The importance of different central routes since ancient times forced the construction of a defence fortress in this strategic area. Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians, and Turks used it as a defence, but the relentless enemy was the earthquake of 1963 that left it in bad shape.