THESSALONIKI: 27/28 August 2022

I’m sure many of you would have heard that the Melbourne Greek diaspora, at 425,000 (2021 census), is the third largest Greek population in the world.

It takes no guessing that coming in first is Athens, the capital of Greece, with 3.15 million.

But who knows which city comes in second? Well I now do, as Greece’s #2 most populous city is Thessaloniki, where we have spent the last two days.

Thessaloniki is in the far north-east of this amazing country. The late summer weather here has been warm and sunny (and humid!) which is why the city is quite busy, filled with many Athenian holiday makers escaping the extreme heat of the south and seeking out the beautiful (and less-popular and cheaper than the islands) beaches ?.

On arrival into Thessaloniki, you certainly wouldn’t ‘ooh and aah’ at its beauty, architecture or glamour, as we have in other cities visited like Vienna or Prague. Our initial impressions were actually pretty poor, with the edge-of-town bus station run-down, graffitied and dirty. The centre of town was not a lot better, with old buildings, piles of road-side rubbish and what seemed like every spare wall tagged with paint and slogans.

The car parking gave us a further impression of disarray, with cars haphazardly parked across gutters, alongside and sometimes facing each other, on top of unmown footpaths and even across major intersection corners.

Sometimes initial impressions are not accurate, and this is one such case.

We have met lots of wonderful people over the past two weeks (eeek, it’s two weeks since we arrived in Berlin!) Some of them we have met fleetingly: for example when asking directions; buying bottles of water; or being served in a restaurant. Others we have got to know a little better, like our food walking tour guides in Prague and Budapest; Poitr our Skoda car communist era tour guide in Bratislava and the lovely and extremely talkative Petrit who drove us into and around Kosovo.

Each of them have helped us understand a little more of what life is like in the places we visit.

I do admire the trait of passion. I actually admire it a lot. I’m particularly interested in and attracted to people who passionately love what they do, what they believe in, what they like, and also sometimes, those who are passionate about what they dislike.

Unfortunately, Sunday’s are very quite in Thessaloniki and probably throughout much of Greece. Most Greek people identify as Greek Orthodox, and Sunday is acknowledged as a day of rest and religious observation.

Therefore, the large and popular fresh food markets were not open and nor were any food tours available. With some detailed internet research, I did come across one option for us on a Sunday, an experience titled ‘cooking and eating with a Greek family’, but more on that later!

Some of you will know that Dave spent the last 14 years of his working life as a reporter for Defence newspapers. His favourite part of the job was writing history stories and he was always first with his hand up to write about Australians who had served overseas during Australia’s 120+ year military history.

In 2017 Dave took up the idea of writing an article about Army Nurse, Sister Gertrude Munro, following a conversation with a Nurse Captain he had met at work. She had told him her story about her own visit to Thessaloniki.

The Captain had travelled there the previous year to see Gertrude’s grave. Gertrude Munro had died in 1918 from pneumonia and malaria following a long stint serving at the 43rd General Hospital in Salonica (now Thessaloniki) in WW1.

The British Military Cemetery, impeccably maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (or Commision as the plaque spelt it ?) was about 15km south along the coast from the city. It held 1810 Commonwealth Soldiers’ graves. The only Australian grave there, Sister Munro’s, was easy to find thanks to a simple to use CWGC iPhone app! I always find visiting war graves both fascinating and emotional. The record on each gravestone, with the details of so many, often very young, lives lost is a stark reminder of the perils and impacts of war.

Even though there is no ride-share options as such in Greece you can use both ‘Uber’ and ‘Beat’ to order and pay for taxis. This certainly makes things simpler and we were easily able to book a taxi to take us to the southern end of a 3km strip along the foreshore in the centre of Thessaloniki. By the time we walked a couple of kilometres in the sun, we were hot and thirsty and stopped into one of the many beachfront bars for an icy cold fresh lemonade (me) and an iced chocolate (Dave). We had planned to taxi from there the 1.5kms back to the hotel, but even with shops closed we decided to walk to take in the many sights. Too hot to eat and saving myself for the evening cooking and eating experience, we took to the hotel pool for a cool off and then back to the room for a rest.

Dora and Michael are a 30 something year old couple living with their nine year old daughter in Evosmos, a mostly industrial suburb about 15 minutes by taxi from our city hotel.

As I said, I love leaning about what life is like for others, understanding better their priorities, passions, interests and beliefs. What better way to do that then by cooking and chatting together in someone’s home!

Dora and Michael were experts in sharing personal stories and conveying their passion for all things Thessalonian and Greek! No doubt having regular visitors in their home since starting this business a few years ago has perfected their English and it was not long before our conversation was flowing easily. Of course tasting the Ouzo, Greek wine and Tispori (a very strong, home-made liquor that is made from grapes) helped the conversation along also!

Dave and Michael headed to the apartment’s balcony for some culture and political chat and Dora and I to the kitchen to prepare our dinner: Tzatziki, Moussaka; Greek Salad and Revani, a warm syrup cake made extra moist and flavoursome with cinnamon and grated coconut.

I won’t go into all the detail (but happy to share the recipes if you would like) but needless to say I loved learning all Dora’s hints and tricks to make the most delicious and traditional Greek meal.

Once the cake was cooling, and the Moussaka in the oven, Dora and I joined the boys to chat more as well as admire their view towards the Thermaic Gulf (and the associated cool breeze).

We came back inside their neat and homely apartment, to the dining table under the air-conditioning to taste all of Dora and my creations. Personally I thought the Moussaka was just perfect and Michael even declared ‘I think you are a good cook – this Moussaka is very good!’? Not such rave reviews on the Tzatziki, apparently the cucumber wasn’t cut small enough. The Greek salad, with its sun-ripened, family grown tomatoes and it’s salty, sharp and crumbly feta cheese was divine. It is once again proof that simple foods, eaten in season and made with love are usually the best. I would have eaten more (they were insisting we ate seconds) but knowing there was cake for dessert stopped me! A lovely golden and quite large slab of the cake, served simply with the syrup it was bathing in, appeared in front of me before I could request a small serve, but alas I did manage to eat it all ?

By 10.30pm with the help of a few drinks and a full belly, I was tiring and so we ordered a taxi and said our goodbyes. I feel like we now have new friends – Dora even added me on Facebook which is a sign of true friendship, isn’t it ?.

I know there will be many more people to meet and learn from over the second two weeks of this holiday. Seeing our dear friends Shaun and Steph for a few days next week, visiting half a dozen Greek Islands is I’m sure going to be a massive highlight. I learn more and more as I get older that listening to and engaging with how other people think and feel helps me to rethink or confirm my own thoughts and priorities. Meeting incredibly passionate and patriotic people, such as Michael and Dora doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say (In my opinion Australian food and beaches are the best in the world!) but being with people who passionately believe in what they say is just so energising and uplifting! What a wonderful experience! Apologies for the overly-philosophical outlook in this post – it must be all the talk of mythology, culture and history 🙂

Monday 29th August

It’s been a super busy couple of weeks, packing as much in to every location as we could manage, and now it’s time to head to a Greek Island for some rest and relaxation.

Before walking to the nearby train station for our 12.57pm Hellenic Trains trip to Piraeus, (the port city close to Athens), we braved the beating sun and wandered a couple of kilometres to a nearby outlet mall to buy Dave a new suitcase (or Port as he refers to them). He was a little reluctant to part with his 17 year old bag (which has been to 49 countries, nearly as many as me!) but the wheel bearings were going, the edges fraying and the zipper at extreme risk of packing-it-in! We found a similar size replacement, on sale, and as a bonus will get a tax-refund of $8.50 when we leave Greece. A quick repack back at the hotel, a fond farewell to and then disposal of the said bag (in a back alley skip-bin!) and it was time to head to the train station.

As we arrived at the platform the outside of the train looked very dubious, but thankfully the inside was air-conditioned and fairly comfortable. A bit like the city of Thessaloniki – rough on the outside but soft on the inside. Again cabins of six, all pretty much full, but happily not overflowing like previous trains have been. (1st class = €40 full price and €32 for 65+).

The four hour trip to Athens was immediately followed by a rushed bag-drag to the information desk to find out which platform the next train departed from. Would you believe it was the same platform we had just left! So a rushed bag-drag back to platform nine (including down and then up what felt like a hundred stairs) and we boarded the train for the short ride to Piraeus. We will leave our Athens site-seeing till next week once we are rested up a bit.

We are now in our hotel in Piraeus, contemplating whether to stay inside a bit longer in the lovely air-conditioning or to head out to find something yummy for dinner… either way we are super excited for the ferry ride and the next few days of R&R on Hydra!

Some random pics from the train trip down to Athens from Thessaloniki: