Day 21 - [T]hessaloniki

Visiting the past

My first day in Thessaloniki was very educational. First lesson: the Greeks know what a real breakfast looks like! I visited Donkey Garden, on the recommendation of my AirBNB host and they had great cooked breakfasts and double-shot cappuccinos; I was in heaven! It’s a lovely little cafe housed in an inner courtyard of tall residential buildings. It was the first breakfast that I’ve had this trip that I’ve really enjoyed – in the sense it was like my favourite breakfasts back home.

Donkey Garden

Trying to show the courtyard

After breakfast, I wandered down the road from the Hagia Sophia directly to the White Tower – both famous buildings in Thessaloniki built in the 12^th or 13^th centuries. One thing that I noticed with the Hagia Sophia, and then again with many other ancient buildings and monuments, is that the city is built right up to them. Hundreds of years of people living their lives in this ancient city have meant that these fantastic, monumental, buildings have been crowded in by banal residential and/or commercial buildings because the residents of the city have to live somewhere (I guess). For my Canberra friends, it’s equivalent to the National Library being literally surrounded by GeoCon apartment buildings, including between the library and the lake edge.

Orthodox Church one block down Mitropoelis	The rear entrance to this church taken at the end of the day	Archbishops (or equivalent) of the Orthodox Church
The Hagia Sophia – rear	Street scene of Thessaloniki	Another street scene of Thessaloniki

The White Tower (which has had many names, but goes this one because some convict white-washed the entire tower to absolve his sentence) – which is no longer white – sits proudly in a park beside the sea. It will be many, many years before it is built out, I reckon. It’s a fascinating building relying on monumental construction for security (and stability). Housed within the six floors of the tower was museum that purported to describe the history of Thessaloniki. Unfortunately, it was mostly digital, all presented in Greek and lots of it not actually working. There was an audio guide available in multiple languages, but I couldn’t make it useful because there was a single audio track for each floor and you couldn’t control which bits you listened to while you looked at the displays. Anyway, I walked all through the tower because it’s an interesting building. While the tower is built on a monumental scale, with six foot thick walls, a lot of it is built for people who are much shorter than me. I spent a lot of time with my head bowed so as to not bash my head on the domed ceiling. All the doorways required me to duck to pass through.

The White Tower on approach

The White Tower

Panorama from atop the White Tower, looking West

Panorama from atop the White Tower, looking East

Panorama from atop the White Tower, looking South

I’d noted the Arrabella from the top of the White Tower. It looked great. When I walked up to it, I discovered that it was offering 30 min cruises for €7 and the next one left in 15 minutes. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I decided to take the cruise. It was as tame as I suspected that it would be, but was a pleasant loop around the harbour and did offer the perspective of Thessaloniki that I had hoped.

The Arrabella from the White Tower	The Arrabella	The Foredeck
Thessaloniki Foreshore from the harbour

After the harbour cruise, I walked along the foreshore, where market stalls were in place (I think probably because it’s Sunday). I came across the statue celebrating Alexander The Great – local Macedonian guy who made good.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

The memorial plaza – the more I look at this photo, the more I love the tribute effect

From there, I visited the Museum of Archaeological History. This is an amazing collection of material that recounts the human habitation of the area (and greater Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean). So much that I could have photographed and I took too many anyway. The selection is deliberately abstracted.

Marble sarcophagi outside the museum
Mausoleum door – intact solid marble	Beds from the mausolem	Explanatory matter
Statuary, mostly found in funerary context
Roman mosaics found and preserved
‘Bust of an old man’ – I love this guy’s expression	Portarit of Alexander the Great – he was 33 when he died, having conquered the known world in his 20s	Portrait of a bearded god – in virtually perfect condition (sans body)
Macedonian armour – they were not big people	Armour that has been embellished with gold; possibly ceremonial	Definitely dress armour – that’s real gold
Dervanti Crater – obverse (front)	Dervanti Crater – reverse (back)	Explanatory matter

After a long visit to the Museum, I headed off towards the Arch of Galerius. It was a pleasant walk up one of the major boulevards. The arch is very interesting structure.

Street tree – check out the size of that trunk

The Arch of Galerius

The Arch of Galerius

From there, I saw the Rotunda. Following my nose, I visited this fantastic building. It encloses an enormous volume with twenty feet thick brick walls. Beautiful mosaics are still present, though badly degraded.

The entrance to the Rotunda	The Altar (still in use)	Twenty foot thick walls
‘Fish eye’ photo of the interior – horizontal	‘Fish eye’ photo of the interior – vertical	The central cupola ceiling

After the rotunda, I decided I would walk down to a statue of a Greek leader who was proclaimed as following in Alexander’s footsteps in modern times. This walking journey led me past two more churches that were almost completely built out by the surrounding residential buildings.

Church

Church

Onward led me past one of the new Metro stations that had revealed some of ancient Thessaloniki during its construction. Visiting several of these Metro stations is on my list, so I stopped to check this one out. One thing that I was very bemused by was that the information boards included a section entirely in Braille. I couldn’t get passed the idea that helping blind people to read material that described what they had before them (but could not see) was at worst patronising, and at best largely wasted effort. I’m clearly missing something.

Ancient agora discovered while building the Metro

Interestingly (to me), as I continued walking past the Metro station towards the statue I was targetting, I walked past the bus stop at which I had disembarked the night before. That located me internally in the city again and I got to see some things that I’d not seen the night before because it was dark and I was on a mission.

The statue is on a major promenade/pedestrian boulevard through the nominal centre of Thessaloniki. If I’ve understood the bits of history I’ve seen today, this boulevard has been in place since Roman times. I walked down the boulevard because at the end closest to the sea is a district called Ladadika. The district is renowned for it’s restaurants and had been recommended to me by Dimitra who had visited the year before, and by my AirBNB host. I planned to have my second meal of the day there.

The central North-South promenade in Thessaloniki

Statue of Eleftherios Venizelos

The promenade extending to the harbour

I had a lovely ‘linner’ in Stavvio’s Great Greek Grill. Watching folks enjoying the late Sunday afternoon and reading.

From there, I promenaded along the waterfront towards the White Tower, past where my AirBNB is then turned up a street to walk back along Mitropoleus, confident that I knew where I was all around this area. The fact that the Romans built the old town of Thessaloniki on a grid helps me enormously, once I’ve got a couple of landmarks situated.

The view from ‘linner’

West along the promenade

East along the promenade

Daily facts: Location: [T]hessaloniki Temp: 22 Weather: Sunny, with some overcast