Category: Greece

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.

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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.

We arrived in Kalambaka via two trains from Athens; one fast and comfortable, and the other fast and rattly. That evening, we went out for a late dinner at the creatively named Restaurant Meteora, and I had possibly my favourite ever slow cooked lamb dish. The sort of dish where the meat is so succulent that it just falls off the bone, almost as if it had been placed on top of the bone for presentation purposes.

There had been thunder rolling around the valley all afternoon and we’d even received an extreme weather warning on our phones from the Greek government, so I was fully expecting this visit to Meteora to be a complete wash out. Still, Sara wasn’t giving up that easily and set an alarm so that we could reassess the situation in the morning. I couldn’t quite believe it when Sara, while looking out the window, informed me that it was still raining, but not nearly enough to stay in bed and that I had to get up. Begrudgingly, I packed a bag full of snacks, and we rushed to catch the first bus up the mountain. The views over the mountains of Meteora, topped by precariously perched monasteries, were spectacular even from the bus window. It was already clear that this was not an opportunity to pass up for fear of a bit of rain.

Without much of a planned itinerary (other than a vague idea that we would do as much as possible under our own steam), we hopped off the bus at the Great Meteoron Monastery, the largest of the six mountaintop monasteries. A queue was already forming on the steep steps up to the entrance, so we opted to start our excursion with a hike to the neighbouring Monastery of Varlaam, which required a steep descent and ascent along footpaths between trees.

This monastery had an incredible terrace, with views good enough to make me momentarily consider life as a monk.

Inside the first room of the monastery was a giant, room-sized wine barrel, which unsurprisingly appealed to Sara. Maybe we could both find a home in the mountains of Meteora.

Although today the monastery can be accessed on foot, right up until the 1930s monks had to be lifted via a winch, rope, hook and net. Apparently, when asked how often the ropes were replaced, the monks replied “when the Lord lets them break.”

Our hike continued on to a convent via another steep descent and ascent, and the stunning views continued as well.

This convent was much smaller and less extravagant than the first monastery we visited, but that was probably much to do with the fact it was even more precariously perched on the rock. The nuns tended to their immaculate garden and produced honey and other goodies that were available for purchase.

The route to our final monastery of the day was a combination of footpaths and road walking, passing a couple of breathtaking viewpoints.

We were flagging by this point, so paused on a hidden ledge just beneath one rocky viewpoint to recharge and enjoy one of the best snack-views of our lives.

The last stop on our improvised route was the Monastery of Agias Triados, and fortunately we learned that it was closed before hiking the ridiculously high set of steps up to its entrance. Now, I realise that you’re never going to believe me, but we genuinely had no idea that this monastery was also a filming location for yet another Bond film. Slightly less glamorous than Italy, this spot was graced with Roger Moore pretending to scale the cliff face in For Your Eyes Only. The pace of the sequence doesn’t quite match that of the Daniel Craig era, so I’d recommend watching the clip on double speed to get the gist.

We couldn’t find much information online about hiking the Meteora mountains, so I’ve done my best to draw out our 5-6 hour itinerary on the map below. The bus route is shown in blue and the hiking route in black, though beware: the walking route included a lot of steps and zigzags that aren’t captured on the map. We’re big fans of the Footpath mobile app, which reliably plots footpaths that are often missing from Google Maps.

I should probably explain that I’ve spent the last few days desperately trying to convince Oli that the Acropolis is actually called the apocalypse. (“Shall we get dinner after the apocalypse?”) Sadly, it didn’t catch on.

This was our first visit to Athens, so we had a lot of ground to cover. On our first morning, we followed a Lonely Planet walking tour, which is our favourite way to get our bearings in any new city. This took us past the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where the soldiers perform a slow motion march in their pom-pom shoes and then have their brows mopped in a strangely tender manner by another soldier. It was a very hot day but still, it was a little odd to watch.

Next, we passed the Roman Agora, with its 64-seat public latrine (going to the loo in front of that many people is surely the stuff of nightmares!) We also walked through the pretty Anafiotika neighbourhood, which sat just under the Acropolis but had the feel of a peaceful village. Here, we saw our 50th Greek cat (hidden Where’s Wally? style in one of the photos below).

We took full advantage of being in a capital city and enjoyed the international food scene – coconut curries at the buzzy Dara Thai Restaurant, south Indian cuisine at Dosa House, and a seriously, seriously good lentil moussaka at Veganaki. I would honestly revisit Athens just to eat the vegan moussaka again, and until then it will haunt my dreams.

We perfected the art of peering through fences at Roman ruins. I say art – there’s obviously not much to it really. Oli is helpfully demonstrating below, while saving on admission to the Archaeological Site of Kerameikos.

It was only a matter of time before Oli dragged me along to something energy-related, so we visited a disused Coal Gas plant that had been converted into an events space. I was envisaging something like Coal Drops Yard in Kings Cross and perhaps it would have been a bit more buzzy if not for being a grey Tuesday afternoon. Anyway, it wasn’t a wasted journey because we took a look at some of the exhibits, met another cat and had a go on an enormous adventure playground.

Finally, we spent some time touring some of the best street art in the city. Athens has become known for its graffiti (much of it expressing dissatisfaction towards the government’s handling of the financial crisis) and these street art projects have been an attempt to channel that creativity into something a little more structured.

We definitely only scratched the surface of this great city and would love to return to explore it more (and eat more vegan moussaka).