Old Bazaar

The Old Bazaar (Stara Carsija) is the largest Ottoman-era bazaar in the Balkans outside Istanbul, and it has been Skopje's commercial heart for roughly 900 years. A maze of cobbled lanes opens onto small squares, with the sound of coppersmiths hammering, the smell of grilled meat and roasting coffee, and the call to prayer over the rooftops. It is a working quarter, not a stage set, and it sits about an 18-minute walk from our apartments in Debar Maalo, just across the Vardar over the 15th-century Stone Bridge from Macedonia Square.

Come hungry. The thing to order is cevapi (kjebapcinja), grilled fingers of minced meat with kajmak, raw onion and peppers, tucked into warm lepinja bread. If you want the Macedonian classic, ask for tavce gravce, baked beans in a clay pot, alongside a shopska salad of tomato, cucumber and grated white cheese. Burek and grilled vegetables cover the vegetarian side, and you should finish with walnut baklava and a tiny cup of Turkish coffee or tea in a tulip glass.

Between meals, the bazaar is one of the best things to do in Skopje on foot. Step into Mustafa Pasha Mosque from 1492, white marble under a single great dome with a rose garden out front, free to enter outside prayer times. Wander Kazandziluk, the coppersmiths' lane where artisans still beat trays and coffee sets by hand, then the goldsmiths' street and the old covered market. Two Ottoman hamams now hold the National Gallery's art, a cool refuge on a hot afternoon for a small fee.

Go in the late afternoon. The midday crowds thin, the light turns gold, and you can eat dinner in the lanes before climbing to Kale Fortress, a few minutes uphill, for sunset over the old and new city. The fortress is free and keeps daytime hours, roughly until early evening, so time it so you reach the walls before dark. The bazaar itself never closes and costs nothing, though individual shops, mosques and the markets keep their own hours and Bit Pazar, the green market at the top, winds down after lunch.

Bring cash in denar for grills, sweets and market stalls, and expect to bargain over crafts. Dress modestly if you plan to enter the mosques: covered shoulders and knees, hair covered for women, shoes off before the prayer hall. Allow two to four hours to wander, eat and see the main monuments. Tell us at check-in and we will point you to the lanes worth getting lost in, and to the grill we send everyone to first.