Advertisement
Published: March 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Wow! What a dreary way to start the day... it was the kind of day that thriller movies start at with... cold, lightly-raining, heavily overcast... But the weather is what it is...
Heading out from the train station, I caught a bus to the central area of Thessaloniki. It has a long walkway along the ocean about five feet above the water... so it just drops off. One of the first things I noticed was Greek flags all over the place... seemed a bit over-patriotic at the time... hanging out windows, people selling them on the street, etc... more on that later.
Thessaloniki has a lot left over from the Romans, and so I checked that out.
Galerius Maximianus had a massive palace built there around 300 AD. Most of it has fallen apart/destroyed/built over, etc. But archeologists have done a lot to preserve what is left. When I say massive, I mean about 150,000 square meters... some of that, I believe, was courtyards, though. It stretched all the way from the ocean inland about, maybe 300 or 400 meters. Basically, just like a lot of these type places, it changed hands a lot, pagan places of worship
The White Tower
Also, the Bloody Tower... as it was once a prison. were converted to Christian, and there were some massacres along the way (1,500 slaughtered at the Hippodrome because the people rioted when a popular charioteer was imprisioned).
http://alexander.macedonia.culture.gr/2/21/211/21116/e211pa02.html
However, cats now rule the place... at least that is based on my expert observation. 😊 Most of the walking area is sand (oh, how cats love sand), there are boardwalkes to hide under, and all sorts of holes and cracks to hide in and find shelter. After the first four cats I saw, I named them the Tetrarchs. But, alas, by the end of the day I think I had seen dozens. Galerius himself was one of the tetrarchs... a ceasar, I think... also, he apparently died before its completion.
Earlier, I had noticed what looked like Greek folk dancers going somewhere, as well as people walking towards something. So, I headed that way... and it was a parade. It looked like groups from all over Greece walked by, as well as the red cross, the representatives of the military, as well as others. Later on that day... in a cafe in Athens, someone told me it was the Greeks independence day celebrating when they gained independence from
A Road in Thessaloniki
I'm thinking about banning taking photos of streets... but, sometimes they are striking and so, I guess, I must. ;) the Turks in 1821.
After the parade, I searched out a dessert shop I had noticed earlier. It was amazing. I haven't seen anything like it in the states, and better than anything I saw in Paris. Apparently, most of the pastry shops here make the desserts at the shop. None of it looked like the processed, obscure-ingredient-intensive desserts found at the grocery stores, or even at the malls, in the U.S. I had some phyllo dough pastries and some sort of chocolate shell dessert that had a rich chocolate pudding-like filling. I kind of over did it, and that was just scratching the surface. Oh, it would be great to have one of those in Columbia...
After that I walked around, took some more photos, and headed to the train station. This train was a little nicer, and my EURail Pass got me in first class (all EURail Passes do) for the trip to Athens. Since it was still daylight, I saw almost all of the Greek countryside between Thessaloniki and Athens. Thessaloniki has about 3 million people, while Athens has a whopping 5 million, which leaves a LOT of open, sparsley populated countryside.
The train
went along the coast to begin but then hit the mountains. The mountains were beautiful. For some of it, we went up into the clouds. I took some photos, but it is hard to capture... Very, very beautiful and unlike any other countryside I have seen in person.
After getting to Athens, I spent another hour getting to the hostel (it is in some suburbs). I settled in, met a guy from Brazil that has been touring through Europe for three months, and then went to a cafe to get a glass of wine... my stomach wasn't feeling so great... it was pretty unsettled, and wine does the trick. There I met an American from Boston that married a Greek (though, her parents are from Greece, and she learned a lot about Greece growing up) and she told me a lot about Greek culture.
Then I went back to the hostel and got some much needed rest.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.181s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 31; qc: 135; dbt: 0.1206s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Augusta
non-member comment
Dog
Is that dog wearing boots?