Skopje

Skopje needs 2 days: the Ottoman Stone Bridge over the Vardar river, connecting the Old City with the modern center full of monumental statues built over the last decade, on one day, and the Old Bazaar, the largest in the Balkans outside Turkey, on the other. April-June and September-October are best. It's very cheap for Europe. It was almost entirely rebuilt after a 1963 earthquake, and since 2010 an urban plan called «Skopje 2014» has added dozens of statues and neoclassical buildings that sparked controversy over their cost and grandiose aesthetic.