Thessaloniki to Edirne / Adrianopolis

 

I love Thessaloniki, It's not as cool as counter-cultural Berlin, it's nowhere near as anarchic as Athens, nor as historic and monumental. It's not as dirty as Plymouth on a Saturday night, it's not particularly beautiful, it has it's disgustingly modern grid system, fancy boutiques and a sleazy strip bar district,  but I love it. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe it has the sea. The sea is always there, acting like a heat sink for hot Mediterranean blood: Never allowing a boil-over.

The sea front (I've no Idea what they call it, but the locals basically promenade) is a popular choice for a walk in the city and one of the few placed that you can go for a run without breaking your ankle on the 'character-full' pavements. Recently someone has paid millions to extend this promenade miles along the coast with ornamental parks and gardens. So now they can walk further!

Mount Olympus at sunset.

that old time religion

The sea front promenade extension with nice wooden boardwalk and snazzy umbrella art.

One of the first things that I did was to climb up through the old high town that escaped the great fire (Ana Poli) to the Byzantine/Ottoman fortifications at the acropolis. The Belted tower (below) was free to visitors and very interesting. It was an interesting land parallel to a Martello tower in design. The views of the city were great so a hint to any traveler, when visiting a city or town in Greece, always head uphill if you have the choice.

The belted tower was a key point in the city's fortifications, it is now surrounded by houses but once dominated the hillside.

A view from the tower, you can see the line of the city walls and the Roman Rotunda and Arch of Galerius as well as the iconic White Tower by the sea front.

The summit of the hill is capped by the defensive citadel know as Heptapyrgion or YediKule which both mean 'seven towers'. For much of it's recent history it was a prison with very hard conditions. Many Rebetiko songs have been written about it (so I've been told).
The prison was closed in 1989, so is still in good condition.

The prison door, note the wear on the steps.

The exercise yard, I think there used to be barbed wire stretched over the top.

Maybe I liked the city because there was history apparent everywhere, it hadn't been demolished to reveal the Hellenistic levels below, and there were remains from all of the cities history. There were even minarets still standing.

Kamara or Arch of Galerius

Detail- Galerius was 'first among equals' in the first Roman tetrachy, that's why only he is wearing armour.

I spent a lot of time in Thessaloniki for a traveler, I think even though I had a bit of bad luck finding a host at first and further problems with the first host that did accept, I did have the good fortune of finding a fantastic hostel to stay in and through couchsurfing met a variety of fine folk, all of whom I would love to be friends with 'in real life' if the chance ever arose. However, when travelling you just know when it's time to leave and after 10 days the itch to move on was impossible to ignore. 

The next stage of the journey was great fun but simultaneously terrifying; Most travelers go the way of Istanbul via a direct bus, I wanted to enter Turkey through a more traditional route namely the old capital of Edirne which had in former years been the base of operations for the Sultan's armies in the Balkans. The problem was that there really was no easy way of getting there without a car. 
I left my last hosts house in good time, but forgot to ask them how to get to the city bus station, so I asked a reasonably sane-looking person waiting for a bus at the Kamara and was told to get on the bus to the railway station (It was my fault, I said 'poo eena stathmos BUS parakalo') So i had to get another ticket there and find the correct bus to take me on my way. The result was that I was 5 minutes late to catch the bus I wanted and would have to wait another 3 hours for the next one. Also It would arrive late in the evening.
I was having mixed feelings about leaving Ellada, there are things that really annoy me about the place and like a bad romantic partner I want to change it to fit me better, but then again those silly things that I find annoying are also part of the appeal. I think I could live In Greece and be very happy indeed, not in Athens! Maybe somewhere in Crete or the southern Peloponnese where I can grow citrus fruits and watermelons in the garden.
Then there are all the goodbyes. Travelling in this way is a very personal business; I share peoples homes, I eat with them, get tipsy together, sometimes dance with them, learn things that a tourist would never know or know that they didn't know, talk about the most general and the most personal things in the same sentence, share a bedroom, clean their pubic hair out of the plug hole etc. The downsides of making so many of these connections is that one day you have to say goodbye to them all. There's no taking them with you in the backpack. We say that we will meet again someday and somehow along our path, but we both know that this is unlikely. It is a way of travelling that I worry will take a toll on me over the long term, but at the same time enriches my life. A kind of sadness that tears out and builds up. Too many goodbyes.

An accidental meeting with my fabulous last couch hosts when we both missed our buses and had to wait in the station, they were running about an hours sleep at this point...

Last Greek sunset during the bus rest-stop

So the bus left me 20km from the border at 9.30pm, in the snow...

Goodbye Greece, hello Turkey. The long walk across a snowy no-mans land.

Edirne or Adrianopolis is the first city in European Turkey, and very interesting. Here are a few scenes of the first two days before I go to Istanbul.

Leaving dirty footprints in the mosque courtyard, accidentally of course!

Part of the old defensive structures

Inside the museum, Google says they've automatically made this photo spangly, click it to see it in all its gaudy horror.

Selimiye Camii, the most accomplished mosque in Edirne and the preferred work of its architect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimar_Sinan

An Edirne evening, Ataturk statue in western general's uniform.

The bazaar, Mustafa Kemal watches you here, too.

I'm travelling to Istanbul today, into unfamiliar territory. I'm rather excited about it all! I wonder what Mustapha Kemal would say?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attaturk#Outlawing_insults_to_his_memory

Acropolis Special

The Acropolis and the Parthenon is one of those iconic places that has seeped into the popular consciousness of most of the human population. In this way it is reached the situation that other heritage sites have reached such as Stonehenge in that perhaps to fully have the monument fulfill the expectations we have of it, it is best perhaps never to visit. The number of times I've heard 'It was way smaller than I imagined' about various places.
Real life simply cannot compete with glossy, artsy photography shot with exactly the right light in exactly the right conditions with no tourists in sight, or sitting back watching the same scenes in HD with stirring orchestral music and an Charlton Heston telling the colourful story of the monument as you sit in your darkened living room, fully hydrated.

The great staircase

Restoration work

People say they are trying to rebuild it, or at least put the roof back on

From the amount of new stone this is clearly not a conservation job...

The modern counterpart of the holy olive tree

A warden bunker, every now and again an angry man or woman emerges from one of these and blows a whistle at the naughty tourists before telling them to behave and going back inside.

My host's apartment was half way up this hill.

wow

hehehe, iz at yr parthanon, steelin' yr marbles

Dionysian Theatre

My trip to the acropolis in Athens was more of a pilgrimage to a site that I had revered for a long time. It symbolises a lot to the Greeks, but also to everyone else. The decision to restore much of the 5th century structure at the detriment (as in complete obliteration) of subsequent wall, buildings and defenses leaves me a little speechless. I came to see the Parthenon as a ruin. It had been ruined by the deliberate and accidental acts of people over history, but that, in my opinion is history, things happen, empires rise and fall. the story continues to be written if we ignore it or not, there was no golden age of civilisation here, instead for 2,600 years of civilisation has ebbed and flowed around the monuments here leaving it's mark as the sea does to the cliffs. 
It makes me sad to think the current custodians of the acropolis think they should and can turn time back, in effect re-writing history.

Mykines to Thessaloniki

Orcharcd along the road from Mykines

I've decided, I'm not going to tell you everything I do any more.

The last post took three days to produce, it ate up valuable time that I could have spent planning my trip, or exploring the quaysides, alleys and other beauty-bereft places.

Instead It's just going to be some highlights, impressions and lots of pictures...


So here goes:
I was quite glad to get back to couch surfing after my two days in Mykines, although the place was empty and the owner's son was happy to hang out and chat it just didn't feel quite right, also at 35 euro a night I couldn't make a habit out of it. 
Actually I'm a little worried I'm a stress junkie, the feeling of elation when everything goes wrong and then somehow you figure it out could be slightly addictive. Is this why I was unhappy in Austria? There wasn't enough challenge? Am I happiest during and after a crisis? Do I need to be completely lost in a country that doesn't even use the latin alphabet to find contentment?

My host in Patra was lovely, the town was also quite entertaining for a day or two and there were some impressive views of the mountains across the gulf of Corinth.

The Corinth canal was within a few minutes walking distance of the bus station..

Bow!

View across Patra towards the sea, scary steps omitted.

The view from the castle

Inside the Ottoman fortifications

No photos exist of the most memorable night where Georgia took me to a Rebetiko night in a local bar, I had been listening to the stuff non-stop for two days and it was beginning to grow on me, it helps too if you have a Greek speaker to translate for you!
Basically Rebetiko is a fusion of urban musical traditions from the early 20th century that reflected the lives of the marginalised people that created and consumed it. I've heard it called the blues of Greece, but this paragraph from wikipedia sums it up well:

Like several other urban subcultural musical forms such as the blues, flamenco, fado, bal-musette and tango, rebetiko grew out of particular urban circumstances. Often its lyrics reflect the harsher realities of a marginalized subculture's lifestyle. Thus one finds themes such as crime, drink, drugs, poverty, prostitution and violence, but also a multitude of themes of relevance to Greek people of any social stratum: death, eroticism, exile, exoticism, disease, love, marriage, matchmaking, the mother figure, war, work, and diverse other everyday matters, both happy and sad.

After another Odyssey of Greek bus stations I arrived in Athens. I had been looking forward to this since I had the idea to start my travels in Greece. It didn't disappoint!

So many of the places I have stayed have been enriched by the people and places I come across by couchsurfing. Athens was one of these places, my host, and after two days his other two surfers created a happy atmosphere unmatched by housemate and hostel alike. 
The stay also enlightened me to the expat life in Athens, mainly because 'Canadian' Mike was in contact with a network of foreigners in Athens and these by virtue of their foreign upbringing were considerably more reliable when organising a night out and suchlike.

1st walk around the city, and there was a protest going on...

Up to 10% by number of all protests are photographers, greater if by mass/volume

Someone tell him the sun isn't out

Mike and I took a walk around the city, and after getting bored watching the riot police and dodging showers he took me to an excellent vantage point to the south of the acropolis

Arch of the roman agora

These are my favourite photographs taken during that day.

The Archaeological museum was another highlight, Here are some of my favourite exhibits:

Female figures

A selection of golden death masks from grave circle A at Mycenae

The famous 'mask of Agamemnon' is the most artistically refined golden death mask, and the only one with a beard.

Gold coverings for the two infant burials

The doorway from one of the subterranean tholos tombs at Mycenae

Boars tusk helmets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

The stadium of the 1st modern Olympic games

A lovely and very interesting walk around the Athens Necropolis, we went grave-spotting. This one is Heinrich Schliemann. 

Grave of Ioannis Metaxas, political strongman/dictator of Greece. Now remembered fondly in spite of repressive policies for saying Ochi! to the belligerent Italians 

Arch of Hadrian

Statue in honour of Lord Byron

 In my walks around the city alone and with my couch hosts I noticed the presence of a listless energy (yes I know that's an oxymoron, but I couldn't think of a better description), from the kids sitting around smoking dope in the 'police no-go anarchist neighbourhood' of Exarchion to the protest marches where almost more people are taking photographs, juggling, selling snacks, being dogs and just stopping to look than the demonstrators themselves. It seemed very difficult to believe that these demonstrations could turn ugly, though the police stationed all around the likely march routes think differently and would probably show up for the children's entertainers against rainy Saturday afternoons march. Especially if those anti-fascists tagged along...

Something's up, the barriers are up at the tomb of the unknown soldier..

The demonstration arrives....

...as do the nutters, leaflet wavers, peanut sellers, acrobats, breakdancers, buskers and a couple of stray dogs.

Riot police deploy

They don't seem very excited

I have no idea what this says

SUDDENLY, SPONTANEOUS CIRCLE DANCING!!!

Thanks to a bit of pleasant weather I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Athens, at first many things about the city infuriated me, but as the week went on I came to develop a liking for these infuriated feelings, those ridiculous pavements, the joy when I could get just one Greek person to smile back at me, the feeling of triumph after crossing a road alive and that feeling when you realize that the bus or metro you are on is going to the place you want to go to...

So basically I had to leave before I couldn't. I had to go before I felt the need to stay. 

Goodbye Athens, you dirty old bastard.

Thessaloniki is a very interesting city, the first thing i noticed is that the port area is most definitely still a port area with all these seedy bars and menacing shadowy corners.

The White Tower, African tat sellers/tourist harassers cut out of shot 

Look! They made an Alexander statue

One very interesting thing about the city is there are archaeological remains everywhere you look and several roman buildings stand intact or a reasonable proportion of their original height.

The palace of Galerius

It's a bath tub!

Cats, everywhere there are cats. Maybe the whole thumbcat thing is true after all...

So, it's back to haunting cafes again.. at least this one had some good music.