Author: Sara

Our final stop on our northern Greek adventure was Xanthi, a town halfway between Thessaloniki and the Turkish border. We’d read that this was an interesting melting pot of Greek, Turkish and Pomak culture, and indeed we started to notice more eastern elements in the architecture and food, as well as people in Islamic dress and most exciting of all, we could hear the evocative call to prayer from our apartment. It’s been a while!

This trip is really bringing home the fact that international borders are artificial constructs and that communities are normally better understood in terms of the region in which they sit. In this case, the region of Thrace sits across southern Bulgaria, north-eastern Greece and north-western Turkey, and the shift between what we associate with Greek and Turkish culture is happening gradually as we move across the region. We really liked Xanthi for this – and it definitely felt much further from home than anywhere we had visited so far, in the best possible way.

On a smaller (but more personally important) scale, we noticed the transition from Italian stovetop Moka pots to a Greek/Turkish coffee maker in our apartment. Oli surprised me at the beginning of the trip by announcing that he already knew how to make Italian-style coffee (despite not being much of a coffee drinker – perks of his multi-cultural PhD lab), thus immediately earning himself the privilege of making me coffee every morning. I wasn’t about to let this new tradition slip, so he dutifully watched an extremely long YouTube video to learn the Turkish method. Early attempts were not promising – he exploded the first batch all over the kitchen (he even got a bit inside the fridge) and then spilled the second batch all over him, the floor, the bed, the sofa and the balcony doors. Turns out he has an impressive coffee-hurling range.

Xanthi delivered on food, and we had our first experience of being given menus entirely written in the Greek alphabet. We were delighted – this is normally a good sign that the area is relatively un-touristed and also gave us a good laugh because Google Translate delivered its most hilarious and surely inaccurate translation yet.

On our second afternoon, we were undecided about what to eat when we saw an enormous queue stretching down the street. After checking that it was indeed for a food joint, we joined the queue and were presented with a whole roast chicken, potatoes and rice – it sounds simple but it looked and smelt incredible. We knew that to do it justice we needed the privacy (and cutlery) that our apartment could provide. It didn’t disappoint!

We also tried karioka, a local speciality sweet. This was a flat, round disc of chocolate and walnut fudge, dipped in more chocolate. We had high hopes so bought two to share; we enjoyed the first accompanied by coffee while sitting on our balcony, and the second we inadvertently left in the fridge after checking out of our apartment (most unlike me; quite like Oli). It was so good that we actually ran back to retrieve it when we realised! It made for a great bus snack.

We had hoped to visit Thermes – a tiny village 40km to the north of Xanthi that has thermal springs. Our research suggested that there was almost no infrastructure surrounding the springs so it wouldn’t have been a luxury experience (check this out in the only photo I found online!), but we were intrigued all the same. Unfortunately, the only way to reach it by public transport was by taking advantage of the reverse journey of a school bus that departed Xanthi at 5.15am and would then bring children from these small Pomak communities into Xanthi for school. Unsurprisingly, the bus wasn’t running during the school holidays, but we weren’t too sad to have an excuse to skip the early start. Perhaps we should have hired a car instead, but we’re still trying to find the right balance between cost, carbon and fun.

In any case, we liked Xanthi and were happy to spend some time exploring the old town, which was full of grand Ottoman merchant residences in various states of repair. Some were beautifully restored but others were in need of a little love.

We also wandered along the river, where we felt the first hints of autumn in the air and saw our 250th Greek cat! Seeing as it was so popular last time (ok, ok, we had a couple of texts), here’s another Where’s Wally? style challenge. Can you spot her?

Our time in Xanthi felt like the perfect farewell to Greece and we’re very excited to be travelling further east. Next stop: Istanbul!

We only planned to spend 24 hours in Thessaloniki as we’d both visited previously, but as soon as we arrived, we remembered how much we liked Greece’s second city and wished we had longer! It felt good to be somewhere familiar where we both had our bearings.

As we’d already seen many of the main sights on our last visit, we opted to hire a tandem for a leisurely cycle along the seafront between the White Tower and the Thessaloniki Concert Hall. This was the first time we’d ever ridden a tandem that actually seemed roadworthy, and that, combined with the perfectly flat and broad cycle path, made for a very serene expedition. We smugly imagined that onlookers thought we knew what we were doing.

After our cycle, we headed to Aristotelous Square to meet up with Dimitrios, a colleague of Oli’s from the energy industry. We had some beers in a seafront bar and chatted travel, tech and NILM.

It was good for me to put a face to a name and lovely for Oli to chat to someone who didn’t groan every time he mentioned something related to energy. It was so nice to see you, Dimitrios! And thanks for the dinner recommendations – we had a great meal at Sebriko.

It’s only a matter of time before we miss a transport connection, and the next morning we cut it pretty fine to get to the intercity bus station for our bus to Kavala, a pretty port town east of Thessaloniki. In our defence, this was partly because we couldn’t find any reliable information about the location of the local bus stops, but it also had quite a lot to do with what’s known in our household as a “loads of time, no time” situation. Normally it’s only me that’s susceptible, but unfortunately Oli got caught out this time too. Anyway, we caught the bus just fine in the end, after a slightly sweaty half hour roaming the bus stops of central Thessaloniki. We could have just taken a taxi to the out-of-town bus station, but what’s nearly neutral about that?!

We arrived in Kavala mid-afternoon, met the local cats, and then spent a couple of hours at the beach for the first time on this trip. To be honest, I’m struggling to add any commentary to this part because I basically arrived at the beach and went straight to sleep!

That evening, we saw a wedding being held in the old town, inadvertantly over-ordered to an extreme extent at dinner (they had to bring us an extra table), and passed by the town’s famous (and very cool) Ottoman aquaduct to see it lit up at night.

The next day was a big day: Oli’s birthday! As a special birthday treat (we had agreed no presents so instead I just hyped every part of our existing plans to him), we took the ferry across to Thassos.

It was a gorgeous morning and the seagulls followed the ship the whole way on our hour and a half crossing. I very much enjoyed this because I LOVE seagulls (I know this is odd). Thankfully, none of them needed the loo above me when I was photographing them as I might have been less enamoured then.

Next followed a couple of days exploring the island of Thassos, which we’ll update you on soon.

As an aside, if you’re planning a trip to Thessaloniki (presumably not because of our inspirational tandem ride, but y’know, if you were going anyway), I can highly recommend reading The Thread to bring its history to life.