Thessaloniki Visit

Thessaloniki is the place in Greece I’ve spent most of my time in after Athens. That’s where both of my parents were born and grew up in and where the vast majority of my relatives live in. I spent many summers there as a kid and I try to visit as often as I can to reconnect with relatives but also because Thessaloniki is a beautiful town. It is the second largest city in Greece with a population of about 800,000. It is built by the sea and is the second largest port in Greece after Piraeus. Most importantly, it is the place where my favorite soccer team (Aris) is based out of. The best part of Thessaloniki is walking by the water (see picture) called paralia. It’s a lot of fun and there are always a lot of people there taking a stroll. The other place that Thessaloniki is known for is the White Tower (even though it’s not quite white). You can go inside and take the stairs to the top (it’s a very comfortable walk). You can see beautiful views of the city from there. One interesting thing about Thessaloniki is that there are no boats allowed by the water as you see in the pictures except for the commercial boats (mostly large boats transporting containers) that are allowed in the commercial port at the end of the town. However, there has been a change since my last trip. They are now allowing some tour boats where you can pay a small fee (I think 10 Euros) and get a ride around paralia. The fee includes an alcoholic drink which is not a bad deal. We did it a couple of times in the evening when it is cooler and more enjoyable to be on a boat. You get a nice view of the city from a different perspective. You can catch these boats next to the White Tower.

The highlight of our trip to Thessaloniki this time was our visit to what is called by locals Yedi Kule or more formally Eptapyrgio (which means seven towers). Yedi Kule was a fortress during the Byzantine years and while Thessaloniki was under Turkish occupation. In the more modern years it became a prison. I had never visited it before except for driving by. Surprisingly, none of my relatives I talked to had been inside either even though they have lived in Thessaloniki for decades. I assume it is because it used to have a bad reputation being a prison and all. My best memory of Yedi Kule was having dinner with my godfather and his wife with a view of it. We decided to do that again during this visit but we also decided to go inside this time and take a tour of the building. It was well worth it as you can see from the pictures. We also took pictures inside the cells similar to Alcatraz. The buildings are quite nice although restoration is continuing. Since Yedi Kule is on the top of a hill overlooking Thessaloniki, there are also nice view of the city as you can see from the pictures. In order to get more pportunities for pictures and to get a sense for the city, we decided to walk back to the center of Thessaloniki. I never thought walking back would be feasible but it ended up being a not too strenuous walk (assuming the weather is not too hot) and the views are really good (there were a couple of steep stairs to navigate though). By the way, we took a taxi to get to Yedi Kule (taxis in Greece are relatively inexpensive). We had our own car but we parked it at the hotel when we arrived and never got it out of the parking lot until it was time to drive back to Athens because traffic was pretty bad and so was parking.

An interesting neighborhood in Thessaloniki worth visiting is Ladadika. Ladi means oil in Greek and Ladadika are olive oil shops. There must have been many of them in the neighborhood for it to take that name, but I didn’t notice any during our visit. Now, the neighborhood is full of restaurants, cafes, and nightclubs and not much else. It’s a pretty part of Thessaloniki and I think it’s one of the few areas that looks like an old town although the neighborhood is relatively small.

Another popular area in Thessaloniki is Platia Aristotelous (platia means square). I’m very fond of this area because of all the great memories growing up. We used to go there with my grandparents and other family often. There are nice cafes, restaurants, and hotels (although the hotels there are quite expensive). There are always a lot of activities in the square. When we were there, they had laid out a bunch of sand and had a beach soccer tournament. The other places in Thessaloniki that are worth visiting are Agia Sofia and Rotunda.