After listening to some Austrian, large and talkative, on the train, I went to the hotel that he recommended, only to find out that he took the last room there. I then returned to the center of Skopje, picking a guesthouse out of the phonebook and ended up with the most delightful, Diplomatique. As always, it's people who make or break a place, and while this is a place clearly owned and decorated by a woman, the employees make you feel totally welcome and go out of their way to assiste any way possible to make you stay there special. Lovely breakfast with home-made touches and the rooms are comfortable and spacious as are the bathrooms. All in all, a great place to stay and I would not even consider staying anywhere else, when I return to Skopje to see the city center complete with all construction finished. The location is great and with just about 10 minutes of walking you are in the center of town with restaurants, a wonderful bookstore with loads of English language books on the way, and a large shopping mall where you can get anything you might need to contuinue or have forgotten to bring. Just across the old Roman bridge you will find the cozy Turkish center and old town for more shopping possibilities and eateries. There is also the newly constructed Jewish center. The hotel has their own trusted driver who will take you to the nearby Maska Lake, not to be missed, or even as far as Thessaloniki or to Kosovo, if you so desire. By car, that's just two or three hours away.