From the shores of North Macedonia’s largest lake, we made the bumpy three-hour drive northeast to its largest city, and capital, Skopje. Pronounced Skop-yay, this city of half a million may not appear to be the most geographically significant municipality when looking at its landlocked location on a map however, you’d be partially wrong.

The newest nation on earth, at least by name, lay just across from our next Balkan border interrogation: North Macedonia. Caught up in a decades-long dispute with neighbouring Greece over where the ancient region of Macedonia actually is, and allowing the victor to lay the best claim to the birthplace of Alexander the Great (very important in these parts), the addition of the modifier ‘North’ to their nation’s name satisfied the Greeks enough to remove any objections they had to the Macedonians potentially joining the EU.