We said farewell to Tunisia but it wasn't a sad one . We had a wonderful trip but I felt like it was time to move on.
We had a stopover for a few hours in Istanbul airport where the food and drink prices were all in Euros. We paid a whopping $21 for this ice-cream!
Finally, we landed in Greece, the country we would be staying in for the next three months. We love Greece and have been here multiple times. This time, as we're here in peak summer, we'll be spending most of our time in the mountains, partly to escape the heat and partly to escape the crowds. We heard a while ago that Greece is expecting its busiest summer ever and that they are short-staffed by tens of thousands of people. Yikes!
We're renting a car for most of our stay and the best place we could do that from was Thessaloniki so we started our trip there. We easily caught a taxi from the airport and the friendly driver chatted to us in English the entire way. We already felt thrilled to be here! It was late when we found our apartment and we went to get the key out of the lockbox using the code we were given. The code didn't work. We tried again and again. We tried putting the numbers in a different order. We couldn't call the owner as we didn't have a local sim card in my phone yet and John's phone wasn't connecting. Luckily another tenant in the apartments turned up and called the owner for us. He had given us the wrong code!
Our apartment was small but really comfy and it worked well. It was a great place to call home for the next five nights.
We were mostly in Thessaloniki to get things organised. The first job was for John to buy a bike. Luckily he found one at the first shop that we tried. So far, he's really happy with it.
We would often be walking down a city street and see a large Byzantine church sitting on the earth a few metres below the current ground level. A Roman palace was just down the road from us and old columns peeked out randomly from excavated holes in the ground.
The Roman agora, surrounded by apartment buildings. It took up an entire block.
Thessaloniki has a population of about 1 million people and is set on the sea. A wide esplanade runs along the waterfront. The White Tower, probably from Venetian times, guards one end of the esplanade.
Lovers' padlocks were anchored onto balustrades but they rusted quickly in the sea spray.
Over the next few days we came to realise that the whole central area of Thessaloniki is chock-a-block full of places to eat. I don't think I've ever seen so many restaurants over such a large area before, not even in places like Rome or London. Restaurants began along the waterfront then spread inland and outwards from there. You could get any food imaginable. There were heaps of vegan and vegetarian options. There were ouzerias (where you drink ouzo and eat meze - small plates of food), pizza places, flash places, simple Greek cafes, bakeries, gyros joints and even places that specialise in bougatsa, delicious custard pies. It was all so good!
The falafels were fantastic!
John had booked us in for dinner one night at a good restaurant. The food was amazing! It was Cretan and it was soooo good. It was located in the old port area which is now a hub of restaurants, of course. It was all very atmospheric at night.
John accidentally ordered a sparkling red "natural" wine with a quirky label and really enjoyed it!
The best place to eat though was in our little street where our apartment was. It was a pedestrian street although endless motorbikes drove through picking up Wolt (like Uber) orders.
We got to know Stefania in the somewhat expensive cafe across the road from our apartment. She was gorgeous and didn't seemed to mind chatting to us oldies at all. Like many people, she came to Thessaloniki to study (this is very much a student town) and liked it so much that she stayed.
Opposite the cafe was our favourite local family-run restaurant run by the ever-smiling Nina and her husband Nico. Their daughter Elena helped out. They utilised a graffitied wall as part of their decor. The food here was wonderful! Every time we went past, Nina was babysitting Elena's oldest child who was a bit of a handful apparently. Nina was also the cook and waitress so it wasn't easy for her but she loved every minute of it. The granddaughter knew everyone in the street and the waitresses in the cafe opposite often found themselves babysitting the granddaughter and nobody minded.
Right beside the local restaurant was a barber. John got his hair cut here. While he was getting it done, Stefania saw us from across the road and brought over a complimentary coffee! I love how everyone knows everyone here.
We even got to know the cats! A black cat lived at the cafe and he was a real character. He attacked any dog that dared venture down his road. We even saw people come to the cafe with their dogs and they had to pick them up to protect them from the cat!
After a few days, we would walk down our street and say hello to all these people. We felt so welcomed into this microcosm of Thessaloniki. We felt very much at home.
On our last day we managed to see a few sights. We went to see the Basilica of Agios Dimitrious but there was a service in progress. We watched amazed as the priest sung and from somewhere, a deeper voice was supporting him. It reminded me of the Georgian singers we saw a few years ago. I only got a tiny bit of it on video before it finished. The acoustics were amazing. It was so atmospheric.
Ceremonies.
We explored old flea markets full of antiques and vintage items. We worked out the best place to cross the busy roads. If we needed help or directions, someone always willingly assisted. What a great town this is! I think a lot of people that we know at home would love it here.
I'll leave you with this sign. I think the Greeks love their coffee as much as the Aussies do!
Yamas! (Cheers!)
Heather and John
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