Thessaloniki

[Angelo]

Thessaloniki has given Greece some of its greatest musicians, artists, poets and thinkers. It has some of the most beautiful beaches and has some of the finest hotels and best restaurants in northern Greece.

I have always loved Thessaloniki. Its a very different city from Athens but no less sophisticated and (some might say) culturally superior. The influence of the east is more pronounced, not just in the delicious food, but in the relaxed lifestyle. Thessaloniki is a big city with an almost college town feel, like Boston or Austin, but Greek. The nightlife in Thessaloniki is exceptional, the bars and clubs play great music. The restaurants and ouzeries are among the best in Greece. There are many cinemas showing first-run English language films. The city is also the site of the renown Thessaloniki Film Festival in October-November. The women, considered the most chic in Greece, support a high-fashion industry that rivals Athens so if you like to shop for clothes, shoes and jewelry you will be quite happy here. There are not a large number of ancient ruins within the city but there are enough Roman and Byzantine sites to keep any visitor occupied, plenty of museums and of course the ruins of Vergina which include the tomb of Phillip, father of Alexander the great. It's also a good starting point for seeing the best beaches of Halkidiki and most beautiful spots in Greece in the region known as Macedonia.

A Very Short History of Thessaloniki.



Thessaloniki is the capital of Macedonia and second largest city of Greece. It was first established in 316 B.C. by Kassandros and named after his wife, Thessaloniki, half sister of Alexander the Great. It means Victory in Thessaly. It is here that the Apostle Paul first brought the message of Christianity (50 A.D.) and that Demetrius, a Roman officer died in martyrdom (303 A.D.), thus becoming the holy patron of the city.

Thessaloniki was the second most important city of the Byzantine Empire, next to Constantinople, and is full of beautiful examples of Byzantine art and architecture. In the 15th Century Thessaloniki became a haven for Jews exiled from Spain, who became an important part of the culture, until they were sent to the concentration camps during the Nazi occupation, thus ending a period of four hundred years of Jewish influence both socially and economically. This period roughly corresponds with the occupation of Greece by the Ottoman Turks. See A Short history of the Jews in Greece.

It became a part of the modern state of Greece in 1913, but burned in 1917 creating a homeless population of 70,000. Add to this mix the influx of refugees from Asia minor after the 'population exchange treaty' signed in Lausanne in 1923 between Turkey, Greece and her former allies who abandened Greece after their defeat in Asia Minor, and you have the makings of a social revolution which took the form of Rembetika music. To this day some of Greece's the most creative musicians including Savopoulos, Tsitsanis and Papazoglou, come from Thessaloniki. (See also A History of Greece.)

Thessaloniki Today



The city was rebuilt in the 1920s and today Thessaloniki is a lively modern city bustling with life and movement. Large avenues, parks and squares, lines of trees that frame commercial streets with showy shop windows. Old houses, neoclassical buildings, stand side by side with modern dwellings which makes a walk through any section of the city an interesting journey. The past and present merge at old taverns, "ouzeries", restaurants next to hotels and luxury bars, "bouzouki halls" (Thessaloniki is the cradle of modern Greek popular song, "rembetika"), cinema halls, theaters and sidewalk cafes on street pavements and squares. Small family run taverns and basement pastry shops offer a delicious variety of famous Macedonian specialties, next to stalls of ice-cream sellers for busy pedestrians.



The main squares are Platia Elefterias and Platia Aristotelous, both on the waterfront and alive with cafes and restaurants, children playing or people just strolling. The Lefkos Pyrgos, or White Tower is the symbol of the city and is close to the University area with its clubs and bars, and the International Trade fairgrounds are located is nearby as is the excellent archaeology museum. The White Tower itself is also a museum of art and history. It was built in the 15th Century and was at one time a prison for insubordinate Janisaries, the soldiers of the sultan who had been taken from their Christian parents as children and molded into his elite storm troopers.




Above the lively city is he world of the Epimenidou or Kastra, an area of old neighborhoods with narrow streets and lovely small gardens with children playing in front of wide open doors. Popular songs from old gramophones fill the air along with the sweet smell of flowers that emit their incredibly beautiful aromas at night. This is the old Turkish quarter of the city and is the remains of 19th century Thessaloniki and the walls that surrounded the city are still standing.


A must-visit place is Moudiano, the meat market, in a restored old building full of energy, smells, and some of the most famous old ouzeries in Thessaloniki, some of them with live rembetika music and spontaneous parties.


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[Prokomenos]

Thessaloniki is very beautiful. One of my favorite places in Thessaloniki is Asprovalta..

[Napalm]

I haven't been their in over 20 years but I recall it being awesome. As good as a "medium" sized city in Europe can get.

[Female]

Nice and good explanation Angelo, intresting to read..