As with most cities we seem to visit, first impressions rarely reflect their true character. With Skopje, we soaked up the city's atmosphere (quite literally) as we battled against the Friday rush hour traffic and the "he who dares wins" Macedonian driving style, before we entered into a manic cross-city chase after the courtesy car the hotel had sent to direct us from the fully booked youth hostel. This pursuit was reminicent of an arcade game, as the driver clearly had no idea how fast a bicycle travels and was doing his best to evade us by tearing across the four lanes of traffic at will, interpreting red lights quite liberally and even performing a U-turn the wrong way through a petrol station. Still, we made it in time to clean ourselves up and head out for an evening in the city.

The following day, we had a chance to appreciate the finer sites of Skopje. The river Vadar, spanned by a 15th Century stone bridge, seperates two very different sides of the city. The north of the city contains several historic buildings, including the Turkish Kale fortress, Mustafa-pasha's mosque and a bustling Turkish bazaar, all of which provided us with a taste of things to come as we continue eastwards. Having been largely destroyed by the earthquake of 1963, the south of the city is made up of modern buildings and, with stylishly dressed people filling its numerous cafe-bars, was very cosmopolitan.

Upon cycling out of the city we seemed to shift back a couple of thousand years though, as parts of Macedoia's road network did not seem to have received much attention since Roman times. After you have just juddered over 10km of cobbles, you are far from comfortable. Combined with the fact that local tractors were slowing our progress, this led us to seek an alternative route via a motorway. Fear not, this was not the sort of motorway to which we are accustomed in England; it had about as much traffic as your average country lane! Once we had passed through the toll booth to astonished gazes, we carried on southwards enjoying the February sun in just a t-shirt.

One striking feature of Macedonia was just how friendly the people were. We stopped in Stip one evening to stock up on food and were approached by a man with the most amazing beard who described himself as the 'legend of Stip'. He had an Heath Robinson bicycle onto which he had attached a spare saddle and a couple of spare wheels (we're hoping to make do for 10,000 miles without replacing either of these, but you can never be too sure). He spoke very good English in an eccentric manner and was very interested to hear about our country and see any momentos of home we had. Things became a little wierd though when he started describing his experiences of aliens and asking us to send videos of alien activity over Stonehenge! His friend, Draco, was not interested in English aliens but instead far more exctied by ladies from our country. He insisted on writing down his full contact details for us to pass on, at which point we decided it was probably best to cover a few more kilometers before dark.

The following day, we were passing through Strumica and happened to come across a bike shop, where we thought Dave's temperamental bottom bracket could be tightened. After much debate, they decided they did not possess the correct tools, but sent Dave off down the road following a moped to a local garage. When he returned, bike functioning properly once more, we were invited into the shop for coffee and ouzo. We spent an enjoyable half-hour discussing the political sitution of Macedonia and their proud 2-2 draw with England in the Euro 2004 qualifiers. Part of the problem we have faced in many of the Balkan countries is that we pass through them too quickly to get to grips with much of the language (let alone the different alphabets). However, on this occassion, we were able to appreciate political maps sketched on napkins and discussion of the (very bad) Albanian mafia with the help of a few Macedonian phrases and the international language of symbols. We particularly liked the symbol for bird flu - a flapping of the arms followed by a sneeze. When we came to leave, they handed us a 1.5l bottle of ouzo which has kept us warm the last couple of nights! Thanks - I couldn't imagine such hospitality from a highstreet shop back home.

We made quick progress through Bulgaria and Northern Greece (part of the wider region known as Macedonia), although it was interesting to observe the contrasting farming techniques in the former country as horses ploughed fields next to plastic polytunnels. In Greece, we had a chance to explore the ruins at Filippoi, which was once a Roman city and home to the first European Christian church founded by apostle Paul in c.50 AD. After resting for a day on the coast of the Aegean sea at Kavala, we will set off for Istanbul and hope to arrive by the end of the month.