Veles

Veles grew up along a sharp bend of the Vardar River, its old quarter climbing steeply up both riverbanks in tiers of red-roofed houses. For centuries it was one of the most important trade and transport towns on the route between Skopje and Thessaloniki, a role reinforced when the railway arrived in the 1870s. That mercantile history left Veles with a distinctive, densely terraced townscape that's still its most recognizable feature today.