Millenium Cross

Let me start by saying that I hate hiking. I hate everything about it. I have no desire to hike and I don’t understand people who do. So let me tell you about my hike today. I take a taxi to the cable car (gondola) area thinking this will be a quick trip. Gondola is closed due to COVID, but guy tells me I can walk. I look up the cross, which looks far away. I start walking. And keep walking. And now I’m sweating but my ears and hands are cold because it’s around 6 degrees Celsius and then the paved road turns into a mountain bike trail and I’m sloshing around in mud and roots in my Vans trying to get up this mountain to see a cross and I’m not even religious. I get up there, have a croissant, and trek back down as the sun is setting. It was freezing, the cross was “ehhhh” in terms of monuments, and I did not expect to spend 2 hours walking up a mountain and then 1.5 hours walking back down. But am I glad I did it? I mean, I guess so.

The Millennium Cross is a 66-meter (217 ft) tall cross situated on the top of Vodno Mountain in Skopje. It is one of the tallest crosses in the world. It was constructed to serve as a memorial for 2,000 years of Christianity in Macedonia and to honor biblical passages citing the evangelisation activities of St. Paul within the region.

The monument is based on a grid design, similar to the French Eiffel Tower and is constructed on a twelve column platform symbolically representing the twelve apostles. Inside the cross there is an elevator to the top level for views of Skopje (also closed due to COVID)

At night the cross can be seen as its covered in thousands of lights.