My last full day in Thessaloniki was also Greek Independence Day. On top of that, it was one of the most beautiful days imaginable. My favorite thing about being me, at least currently, is that when days come around like that, I can go out and enjoy them. And enjoy it I did.
I went back out to the waterfront and walked along the shore. A kilometer or so down from the square that I had found the previous day, I found another square. This one was even more lively than the first. Also, it was very odd because intermingled among the cafes and storefronts were ruins of an ancient town (I assume because it looked ancient) here and there throughout the square. Right next to the roped-off sections of ruins were people drinking coffee or beer in the square.
A little further down the shore was what I believe is the biggest icon of Thessaloniki. It’s called the White Tower and I honestly don’t know anything about it except it isn’t really all that white and it looks like it belongs on a chessboard. I noticed the first day that I saw it that there were people up top, walking around. Having not suffered from acrophobia for almost two weeks now, I resolved that the next day, I would go to the top of the White Tower as well as visit a few of the many museums that were in the neighborhood. I made this resolution, however, not realizing that the next day was a holiday and all of these places would be closed.
Still, I walked around for a long time, looking at the crowds and soaking up the atmosphere. Just like Independence Day in the United States, there were lots of people walking around with their children and vendors were selling hot dogs and popcorn. Some were also selling souvlaki, which I guess is a little different, but much of what I saw didn’t look too different than what you would expect to see back home.
I took pictures of any of the old buildings and statues that I thought looked interesting. I would be lying if I were to say that I knew what many of them were, but I just snapped away. Clearly, there were some ancient ruins, as well as some churches that appeared to be several centuries old. Intermingled amongst these were modern buildings, like the Thessaloniki Civic Center, and modern sculptures. I can’t say that Thessaloniki is a very picturesque city, but it does have enough personality to at least make it interesting.
For food in Thessaloniki, I basically alternated between gyros and Greek salads, making up for the lack of those items when I was in Athens. There was also a ham and cheese pie mixed in there, but just the one. Also, there was some junk food that I tried and liked. They were little puffs of flavored corn meal. They were almost exactly like cheetos, but instead of being flavored with cheese, they were flavored with peanuts. It was sort of a corn-meal-peanut-butter-puff that was actually really good.
One last observation about Thessaloniki is that I’m not sure if it’s spring break in Greece, which is possible considering the holiday, but I saw kids and teenagers out all day the entire time I was there. Even if school was out, however, I can’t explain why the coffee bars and cafes were packed every day I was in Thessaloniki starting at around 3:00 in the afternoon. People must have been working somewhere, besides the cafes, but it looked like an early-Saturday evening instead of a mid-Wednesday afternoon. All-in-all, though, I have to say that Thessaloniki seemed to have a much better going-out-youth-oriented culture than Athens, at least from what I saw.
Okay, that’s probably enough about Thessaloniki. I’m on a train from Greece to Bulgaria (did you know that they stamp you passport in Bulgaria?) and I’m sure I’ll have stuff to say about Sofia coming up.
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