2022 – Early May – Exploring Greece – Thessaloniki, Nafpaktos

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Thessaloniki's White Tower

Driving from Litochoro to Thessaloniki the toll road becomes crowded.  It is the second largest city in Greece at just over 800,000.  Our hotel is within a mile of the waterfront.  The streets are crowded with moving and parked cars, with luck we find a place to park on our second tour around the hotel.  I have to use my parallel parking skills to park on the left side of the street, backing uphill into a tight spot.  We celebrate our success, no dents or scratches on our car or any of the ones we squeezed in between.  We pull our carry-ons behind us, check in and learn that by moving the no parking signs belonging to the hotel we can park just outside the hotel door.  One more trip to the car, a long drive around the block and we are set.

Thessaloniki

Our route

All checked in we walk down a plaza to the waterfront.  Restaurants line the water, all full of diners, coffee drinkers and partiers.  Strolling along the path we see the White Tower in the distance.  It’s easily noticeable from the land and sea.  Now a museum, it has served several purposes since being built in the 14^th century. 

Umbrella sculpture

Excavations in the area give evidence that this area has been inhabited since 5,000 BC.  Thessaloniki was founded around 315 BC, named after Alexander the Great’s half-sister.  Over the 2,000+ years of existence, Thessaloniki has been ruled by many different peoples: Romans, Ottomans, Venetians, and Turks among others.  Finally in 1912 the Greeks revolted overthrowing Turkish rule, becoming Greek again.

Laundry day today.  Only a few blocks away we find a small laundry consisting of six machines.  The place is empty allowing us to complete our laundry within an hour.  We walk the neighborhood; archeological digs are interspersed with apartment buildings and shops.  We agree it must be hard to build anywhere in town because there is probably some ancient structure if one digs deep enough.

Property deed

We catch a bus to tour the town, getting the lay of the land, for other excursions.

The Thessaloniki Archeological Museum displays artifacts from early development of the area, 3,000 BC through the Roman and Ottoman occupation.  I notice an etched stone tablet in the museum, a deed for property, not very portable!  After three hours of taking in all this information we stop for lunch.  The waterfront is full of patrons at every restaurant, we find a restaurant off the water with open seating.

We make our way to the White Tower to see the museum.  Steps follow around the inside wall in a continuous spiral.  We pass several rooms filled with displays describing the growth of Thessaloniki.  Arriving at the top we get a view of the city from the roof of the Tower, 100’ above the street.  As nice as the museum is we are disappointed to find out that everything is written in Greek so all we can do is look at images.  Guides are not available because many school kids fill the museum. 

Further down the waterfront we see the metal umbrella sculpture.  In my mind it’s whimsical, many umbrellas being caught by the wind.  It is a popular spot on the waterfront making getting a photo without people in the foreground quite a challenge.

Galerius Arch

We continue our walk back to the room by way of the Galerius Arch and Rotunda.  These structures were built in the late 3^rd or early 4^th century honoring Emperor Galerius’s victories over the Persians.  The stone carvings surrounding the Arch are outstanding.  Unfortunately, the Rotunda is closed.  We continue on to our room to rest up from our 3 – 4 mile walk through the city.

Basilica of St. Demetrius

After our buffet breakfast we walk to the Basilica of St. Demetrius, patron saint of Thessaloniki.  The Basilica suffered like much of the city being destroyed by fires, and conquering nations; being rebuilt each time, with the current church completed in 1948.  It is huge.  The walls are covered with paintings of saints, martyrs and biblical images.  All the items in the church are amazing; woodwork of chairs, cabinets and doors; stonework detail in the columns; mosaic work in the walls and floors.

Inside the Basilica

Looking for something different we head off to the open-air market, ‘Kapani’.  The market is bustling with life.  One can buy most anything here: luggage, tennis shoes, clothing, decorations.  The next section has food: candies, nuts, olives – lots of olives, cheeses, and desserts.  Another aisle we are surrounded by: chicken, beef, goat, fish, octopus, squid and several types of seafood we didn’t recognize.  Everything is out in the open with people pointing out what they want and the merchant weighing, packaging and taking the monies before moving onto the next customer.

We make a few purchases; a few small gifts, some cheese, sausage and some desserts we don’t normally find in the States.  We are amazed seeing this type of activity.  Talking with the vendors, we find out what’s in their desserts or cheeses.  Then we decide if and how much we want.  Living in the States we get everything packaged, weighed and priced without ever seeing the person behind the product.  I imagine this is how most of the transactions occurred almost a century ago.  It’s fun to take part in this.

Profitis Ilias church

After depositing our finds in our room, we set off to ‘Ana Poli’, the oldest part of the city.  This is the only part of Thessaloniki that did not burn down during World War I.  On the way we stop at Profitis Ilias, a Byzantine church built around the 14^th century.  The brickwork is outstanding with different brick patterns incorporated into the walls.  Unfortunately, the church is closed.  We continue uphill into Ana Poli.  The buildings look older and the streets narrower.  

Part of the wall surrounding
Ana Poli/Thessaloniki

We pass an abandoned Roman church and more Byzantine churches before arriving at the protective wall surrounding Thessaloniki.  It is believed construction started around 380 AD during Roman rule.  Over time the walls were fortified by the different conquerors that ruled Thessaloniki with parts of the wall measuring 12 – 15’ thick.  Watch towers perched on top of the hill provide a commanding view of Thessaloniki and sea beyond.  After our 4+ mile tour of Thessaloniki today we stop for dinner before returning to our room to pack for the next stop on our trip, Nafpaktos.

Street art

Ana Poli

Thessaloniki from Ana Poli

On the road

After a few false starts, missing a couple of turns, we are on the longest driving day of our trip.  We always look for a different way to return from where we started.  Nafpaktos is close to Delphi so instead of taking the same route we make a circle to the west before turning south.  We don’t pass over mountains; instead, we pass through, driving through 30 – 40 tunnels.  They range in length from 500’ to 2 miles.  Each has a name.  The road is a pleasure to drive, just gentle up and down grades.  Even with the tunnels limiting our climbs we go from sea level at Thessaloniki to over 3,300’ returning to sea level at Nafpaktos.  We are on a toll road; in all we spend about 20 Euros taking this road.  The winds are strong.  We pass from valley to valley; some are farmland, others olive groves.  It's all green, I am reminded of Colorado at times.  We pass a large power generating plant, many wind farms and hill sides of solar panels.  Approaching the Gulf of Corinth, we see the Patras Bridge.  It is striking.  The bridge is one of the world's longest multi-span cable-stayed bridges.  We inadvertently drive over it, then have to turn around to get to Nafpaktos.  I am the navigator and I miss the turn mesmerized by the bridge…

Nafpaktos

Walled harbor

Nafpaktos is a small town on the north side of the Gulf of Corinth.  There is a harbor nestled inside the walls surrounding the town.  The walls continue up the hill overlooking Nafpaktos to a Venetian castle and fortress.  The Corinth Canal on the eastern end of the Gulf will be covered in another posting. 

We are staying at Hotel Akti.  It’s not terribly busy being early May so we are given keys to two rooms; we can choose which room we want.  We opt for the more basic room with the large balcony overlooking the water and small play area for the kids.  When we are not out exploring the town, we are on the balcony enjoying the day and view.

Fortress at night

My original intentions of staying here are to relax a bit from today’s long drive, before exploring the Peloponnese.  After speaking with the person that checked us in, we find several things to explore in town: the harbor, clock tower, and hillside castle and fortress.  Wandering towards the harbor we come across several restaurants, all empty.  It seems that Greeks like dining late.  After dinner, we start our initial exploration of town noting where we find the trail to the castle.  We were told we can drive up to the castle in 5 minutes but that would take all the fun out of our exploring.   As we are heading back to our room for the night, around 8 PM the restaurants are filling.  Returning to the balcony we notice the castle above us is lit up.  I hastily head down to the car to retrieve tripods to shoot several images of the castle.  Reflections of the castle along the beach are too tempting to resist.  We also see the Patras Bridge is also lit up, but it is too far for us to shoot.

Inside the fortress

One of the
gates

The next morning, we enjoy our breakfast buffet filling our tummies for the hike to the top of the hill and castle, some 500’ above us.  We find many different ways to get to the main trail.  Each route takes us around different houses providing a different vantage point of the castle and the town.  One cannot get lost.  The spring flowers, familiar and foreign, are blooming and dancing in the blowing wind.

Part of the wall surrounding town

View from the castle

The castle is imposing with a commanding view of the town and Gulf.  It walls are high and several feet thick.  From here we can see the walls snake their way down the hill encircling the town.  We tour several of the buildings within the castle: a storehouse for gunpowder, a church and barracks.

One of the churches

Later that afternoon we celebrate Mother’s Day with a grilled fish, fried mushrooms, and yogurt with honey as dessert.  Returning to the balcony we admire the sunset.  Checking the GPS we discover we did four more miles of exploring today.

Tomorrow on to the Peloponnese

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark