Leaving Ourselves Behind

When you think of Greece, white-washed buildings and sun-drenched olive groves usually come to mind. Our first four days in Greece have been rainy, cloudy and cool, but considering the blistering heat and wildfires that have bedevilled this country all summer, we are not complaining.
The last time we were in Greece was in 2020 during the first lull of Covid, when we were hoping it would all soon be over. We travelled to Athens and hit some of the usual tourist spots – Crete, Santorini, Hydra and the Peloponnese peninsula – all without the usual crowds. It was heaven and we were keen to return.
This time we’re visiting northern parts of the country, beginning with Thessaloniki; the second-largest city in Greece and founded in 315 BC. during the Byzantine Empire. The city was then conquered by the Ottomans in 1430 and remained under Turkish rule for five centuries. Thessaloniki is a mishmash of architectural influences, with the White Tower, one of the relics from the Ottoman era, being a visual symbol of the city.

Once used as a prison, this landmark now stands as a sentry along the seawall, which runs about five kilometres and is a perfect way to get a sense of the city, stop for coffee or lunch and admire the many sculptures that line the waterfront.

Among them: Alexander the Great.

I could not figure this one out – the sign was only in Greek!

A sculpture that has to be the most-photographed on the seawall – “The Umbrellas”. It was created by Greek sculptor Giorgios Zongolopoulos in 1997 when Thessaloniki was named the European Capital of Culture.
The woman coasting serenely by in the foreground showcases an eminently practical solution to transportation. Streets are narrow, parking is a nightmare and these little scooters are the perfect solution to getting about without fuss.

It has taken us a while to find our feet in Thessaloniki, and to get a sense of the place. We arrived after 26 hours of sleepless travel and a 10-hour time difference, to our Airbnb located right in the heart of the old city. We were a little nonplussed when we arrived at the front door of our building. But, appearances can be deceiving. Our little flat, up on the 7th floor and facing the back, is clean, blessedly quiet and cozy. Plus, we are in walking distance of almost everywhere we might want to go in the city and just down the street from a pile of restaurants, cafes, bars, bakeries and small markets.

A typical cafe, where a coffee and a pack of smokes can take you right through the afternoon. I forgot how prevalent smoking is in Greece, and how common it is to see groups of men sitting together in cafes drinking, smoking and gossiping.

People-watching in Thessaloniki is insanely entertaining. We sit there with our cafe freddos and take it all in. There are not a lot of North American tourists here; mainly European. The men with their well-fitting jeans, polished shoes and casual confidence. The women, poured into tight-fitting dresses, striding out on 4-inch platforms, and finished off with cascading hair, elaborate makeup and pedicures. Clouds of perfume. And there we are – the older Canadians, with our Eddie Bauer travel pants and our cross-body travel bags and we laugh. We were never those people; we were never confused for being European.

I took a photo of these shoes (not an unusual sight on the streets here) – the shoes of a woman who can navigate cobblestones and who knows that walking on a high heel makes her calves look better.

The people may be beautiful, but the beauty of the city is a little more elusive. There are so many influences that may contribute to that. While parts of the city are ancient and historically important, much of the old centre of the city by the waterfront was destroyed by the Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, which left over 72,000 people homeless, destroyed many businesses and took years to rebuild.

As a result, there is a curious juxtaposition of ancient, older and fairly new buildings. Much of the landscape is dominated by apartment buildings that can most charitably be described as utilitarian.

A charming older apartment building will be wedged in between a couple with less character.

A building from the Byzantine era will find itself surrounded by more modern influences.

One of the main pedestrian-only squares, was just down the street from us, facing the sea. As you can see, the apartments lining this square have a more sensuous and generous style; the Ottoman influence of curved windows and curlicued balconies.

Our favourite bakery is on this square. Flaky phyllo pastries, rich coffees, filling sandwiches on crusty rolls – thank goodness for our multi-kilometre walks.

From the 16th century until WWII, 60% of the population in Thessaloniki was Jewish – the only Jewish majority city in Europe during that time. Two major events conspired to change that. The Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 wiped out most of the area that contained Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues. During the years it took to rebuild, the demographics changed and Jews were no longer in the majority.

Then, during WWII, over 50,000 Jews were sent to their deaths in concentration camps and only 4% of them survived. Today, there are roughly 1200 Jews living in Thessaloniki, but the impact on the city remains.

We visited the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, which was housed in an old renovated commercial arcade.

The museum was constructed to remember the victims of the Holocaust, and showcased heirlooms, photos, religious objects that had not been destroyed. Parts of tombstones were also displayed in a long hallway; a horrifying display of scraps that had been saved when the Jewish Cemetery was destroyed.

This hallway featured the names of 27,000 victims who had been identified; that list keeps growing as new names are discovered and added.

A few blocks away from the museum is the Thessaloniki Holocaust Memorial at the site where the victims were gathered before being deported by train.

Reading about the Holocaust is impossible enough to comprehend, but each time we are confronted by the physical evidence of that event, it feels like a punch to the gut. We left the museum feeling sobered and numb.

Our next stop was the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, one of my favourite artistic mediums. The exhibit, called Eyewitness, was a collection of the photographs of Yannis Behrakis, award-winning war correspondent, including being part of the Pulitzer-prize-winning team for their coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015. Needless to say, this was not a mood-lifting experience, but we were both so enthralled with the quality of his work and the depth of emotion in the photographs, that I forgot to take a single photo.
This one, plucked from the internet, is of a father and daughter fleeing the Syrian war.

We sat outside the museum and looked out over the water for a while.

We struck up a conversation with a couple from Israel who were here for three days, primarily to see the Jewish Museum and take a guided tour of Jewish points of interest in the city. We were starting to get a sense of the level of culture and history that exists in this city and how it attracts people from all over the world who are seeking something other than the usual tourist sights.

And now – back to the distant past – 298-305 AD, to be exact. The Arch of Galerius was built to commemorate the Emperor’s victory against the Persians. The remains of the Arch exist on a road that connects to the Rotunda.

Just up the road – the Rotunda.

The neighbourhood above this area, called Ano Poli, or Old Town, is bordered, in part, by remains of the old Byzantine walls that circled the city.

The architecture up here is a bit different – older homes with more character, more steep twisty streets.

Greece is well known for its cats – both the strays and the well-fed. For some reason, we saw a lot more cats in this neighbourhood, and this crew were clearly part of a family.

At some point early in every one of our travels, the “imponderables” begin. I wonder aloud to Stephen about something that catches my eye, usually something for which there is no answer.

This time it was this car. If it had been in a road accident, why would it be neatly parked on a side street? If it had not been in a road accident, then what? Did the owner come back to discover this scene? The fury of a wronged spouse? A casualty of Greco-Roman wrestling? We’ll never know what happened.

And so it is for much of travelling. What lies around the corner and how it got there – that is the great excitement. We may never get the answers, but the questions are what keep us going.

We’re leaving Thessaloniki with a sense that we didn’t quite get a sense of this city – we could have used another couple of days here. We found it interesting but we weren’t blown away, like we were in Athens. Maybe we were expecting something else, maybe we were just jet-lagged and weary, and hadn’t found our feet yet. We”re picking up a rental car tomorrow and heading to Vikos Gorge – home to over 200 stone bridges and a footpath that connects many of them. Great hiking. See you again in a few days.