A visit to Skopje should not be considered complete before one visits the nearby Matka Canyon. This manmade heaven is likely the best escapade you can have from the hustle and bustle of Macedonia’s expansive capital, and though it is a bit hard to get there on your own (and on a budget), as I write this article, I will try my best to guide you in doing just that!

Matka Canyon offers an artificial lake that is created by the construction of a dam on Treska River. You can go there as part of a tour or rent a car. However, where is the adventure in any of that? No, you better get there on a public bus! If the bus decides to get you there that is… First of all, you need to make your way to Skopje’s Transportation Center, as this is where all of this city’s public buses depart from. Wait for bus 60, and then hop aboard.
You can find more details about this journey in this website, but you should know that this bus is not to be trusted. It sometimes goes all the way up to the Monastery Cave Restaurant, some other times it goes only up to Glumovo and yet if you are extremely unlucky, sometimes it terminates even earlier at Saraj. These changes seem to depend on how full the traffic is towards the canyon, and how bad the parking situation is up there. In any case, what I would suggest is, if possible, go there on a weekday. Then, pray that your bus goes all the way up to the canyon.
Once you are done with the canyon, do not risk it by waiting around near the canyon itself, and just walk down to Glumovo. Here, you can take another bus to city center if need be. Better yet, if the weather permits it, you can walk all the way down to Saraj. There, it is possible to find buses going to Skopje quite frequently. You never really know if the next bus 60 will make it to where you are or not, so there is no point in waiting for it at the most unlikely stops. All of this is hardly ideal, but the next best option is paying up to 50 Euros for an overly bloated tour or renting a car yourself and brave the parking conditions up there. The choice is yours to make.

Eventually, no matter how, you will get to Matka. You will forget all about your troubles once you reach it. Treska river runs ever so beautifully alongside the last few kilometres of the road that leads up to the canyon, which only adds to the joy of doing this trip. In fact, you will already start seeing people taking a plunge into the icy cold waters of the river here.

Once you walk the rest of the way, which can be as low as a few hundred meters, or a bit over a kilometre, depending on where you are left off by the bus, you will pass a dam, and get to the actual Matka canyon with its very own artificial lake. It was an extremely sunny and hot day when I was there, which did not help with these photographs at all, but it should give you an idea about the kind of place that awaits you if you too end up making this journey.

Once you are in the canyon, there are a few things you can do. You can enjoy a cup of tea or perhaps something a bit more potent in one of the lakeside restaurants. You can go hiking along the right side of the canyon and follow that trail for a few kilometres. You can rent a kayak and see how good you are at paddling under the blistering Macedonian sun. Or you can just join an hour-long boat trip that will show you the canyon and the Vrelo Cave in one go. This is the lazy man’s kayaking journey, but the one I opted for in a heartbeat despite meeting a few nice people who kindly invited me to their own kayaking adventure.

After paying 500 MKD and waiting for enough people to fill a small boat, you embark on a short journey to enjoy the serene waters that now surround you. In about twenty minutes, you arrive at the Vrelo Cave.

As someone who has been to his fair share of caves so far, and loves them unquestionably, I was unfortunately left a bit unimpressed with the Vrelo Cave. It is pretty small, and there is not anything special in it to write home about.

It does have some underground water in it, which is a part of a greater subterranean system, but that is it. I did hear about cave diving being an option from a fellow traveller, but I am not entirely sure if they mean diving inside this specific cave, or diving in the canyon which possibly has its own set of submerged caves all around.

Nevertheless, at least for me, the point of this boat trip and the entire day trip for that matter was not going spelunking. It was just enjoying the views you get during the journey to and back from that cave.

As you can see, said views only get better as the time goes on, though by this point I was worried about my new friends’ kayak adventure. With this little coverage against the sun, the journey that awaited them should have been most uncomfortable. I did see them on my way back, and they did seem happy, so hopefully it all worked out at the end!

Eventually you see the dam, and most importantly, the small pier that you embarked on this short boat trip in the first place. Sad that the journey was over, but happy that I get to experience it despite an unideal bus trip over there and an uncertain trip back home, I hopped off the boat and started to make my way back to where I came from.

I must now end this little article by noting that there are a couple of different boat trips to enjoy in this area. You can pay 200-300 MKD for an earlier gentleman’s boats which let you see some sights around the canyon for over half an hour. Or, you can go all the way to Vrelo Cave Boat Trips and get yourself on the same boat that I did to see the cave as well. The choice is yours, but I would just go with the longer journey to appreciate the area for a more appropriate time.
While it is not easy to get to Matka Canyon on a budget, it is well worth the effort! Despite spending more time waiting for a bus than actually enjoying the canyon itself, I have to say that this short visit to this manmade heaven easily became a highlight of my 18-day trip around the region in the summer of 2024. If you do have a free day on your itinerary, make sure to pay Matka Canyon a visit.