Blogs from Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece, Europe - page 2

THESSALONIKI. November 8/9, 2014. Rain, Overcast, cold. The train left promptly. We had settled in for the 3 hours. Then about 45 mins later there was a Greek announcement. Everyone else but us, got up, got down their bags and made for the door. Found an english speaker who told us there was a train change. No advice when booking! Arrived in T, the second city of Greece, at a very small station not indicative of a second city. Lined up for a taxi, with the homeless, before deciding to go searching in the rain for a taxi. Northern Greece looks to have been hit hard by the financial dramas. Huge youth unemployment must be very demoralising, evidenced by the chronic graffiti. Sat around most of Saturday afternoon due to the constant drizzle. Sunday was much ... read more

Bei näherem Hinschauen waren die Schwäne auf dem See vor dem Hotel Pelikane (aber ohne den Pelikan-Füller). Erster Teil des langen Tages: auf kleinen Bergstraßen durch entlegene Dörfer, malerisch, wunderschön. Temperatur von 16 ° bis 10 ° oben auf den Bergen. In der Umgebung von Kastoria gibt es offenbar Bären, auch wenn ich keinen gesehen habe. Aber es gibt an den Straßen Schilder und die Autobahn ist bärensicher eingezäunt. Dann 400 km Autobahn: wieder ganz neu und wieder leer. Ich hätte mir ja gleich dennken können, dass ich auch hier eine Autobahn finanziert habe. Die hier hat mir aber insofern richtig gut gefallen, als sie Kilometer lang an den Seiten mit dicken, blühenden Ginsterbüschen bewachsen war, die wunderbar dufteten. Ich konnte mir richtig die Massen an Bienen vorstellen, die hier an der Arbeit waren und einen ... read more

Thessaloniki and Northern Chalkidiki - Day 12 Thursday 19th September So after 10 days of self guiding ourselves around mainland Greece, Glyn an I felt no shame at paying €2 each to go on the 'Hop on' Tour of Thessaloniki bus this morning. It took about 50 minutes, whilst the guide talked about Byzantine stuff, mosaics and a statue of some guy on his house.... or so I thought, in fact he said he was on his horse. The bus was pretty empty and the guide kept making us look at photos of mosaics on the screen above his head when I was quite happily staring out the window having a bit of a day dream. Had I come to Thessaloniki on day 1, all the Byzantine Churches, random bits of falling down Roman walls and ... read more

Geo: 40.6197, 22.9442 GÜN 03 GÜNLERDEN PAZAR: Sabah fix program olarak 08:30 da artık yuvamız sayılan Nezih 'in Kahvesine oturduk. Bu sabah kahvaltıyı hafif geçmeğe kararlıyız. Tostumuzu yiyip çayımızı içerken,daha doğrusu içerkene,ben İpsala Turing kulübünün telefonunu buldum. Saat tam 09.00 da Ayşe aradı.. "Kuyruk yok" dediler …Nasıl yani ?? mucize mi ? işletiyorlar mı ? .. Çayı kahveyi acilen bıraktık... bir telaşla paramızı ödedik … Otelden son eşyalarımızı alıp, Şahbaz'ı (şahbaz, bizim minibüstür) kaç dakikada yüklediğimize inanamıyorum.. Apar topar yola çıktık… Ayşe'ye çaktırmadan biraz gazlıyorum.. Keşan kavşağından cırt diye İpsala'ya döndüm .. Hududa yaklaşıyorum ..kalbim küt küt atıyor..hakikaten kimsecikler yok .. Yolun her tarafında ,Türkle... read more

We left sad to leave the rolling hills and sadder to say goodbye to the engaging people we had met in Serbıa but also excited to be heading towards the sea, which we both hadn't seen in well over a year. On the bus leaving Plananıcıa we met Soran, we enjoyed sharing stories and he recently sent us an inspiring poem describing our meeting. We arrived in Nisa few hours later and started investigating how we would get to Greece. There were two trains leaving early the next morning. One to Skopje, Macedonıa and the other to Sofıa, Bulgarıa but still we had no idea if we could easily get to Greece from either of those places. Erıc had a gut feeling that Sofıa would be our best bet so at 2am we boarded a very ... read more