Friday, January 29, 2016
Hello!
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| Room service dinner! |
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| Detail of my salad with poached pear and goat cheese |
I had a lovely massage last night, and then came back
upstairs and soaked in a nice hot bathtub for a bit, while our room service
dinner was being delivered. I had a
salad with arugula with pears poached in red wine, goat cheese, and a honey drizzle
over the top. It was delicious. Robert had their pasta carbonara (bacon in a cream sauce, with cheese) which he very
much enjoyed. I have to admit it was
really nice not to get dressed up for dinner!
Up this morning about 6 am, and down to breakfast about
7.
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| Statue of Alexander the Great |
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| White Tower |
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| Thessaloniki waterfront |
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| Palace of Galerius |
We want to make a trial run to the
airport this morning (as we will be heading there “for real” tomorrow morning)
and wanted to get some idea of how long it would take.
And, it takes about half an hour.
So, we filled up the car with gas (which we
will top off tomorrow morning at the Shell station across from the rental car
place) and headed back into town.
It
turns out that our hotel provides free parking in the City Hall lot, which is
where we actually parked to go to the
Archeological
Museum several weeks ago – but at that point, we didn’t know it could be
free!
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| Portion of old city walls |
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| More city walls |
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| Icon from Agios Dimitrios |
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| Agios Dimitrios |
Then, we headed to the White
Tower (called that because it was white washed at some point in its past)
which had served as a prison (again, its checkered past …) to catch the Thessaloniki Culture Bus. What fun!
Turns out that bus 50 costs 1€ if you’re over 65, and 2€ if you’re
under, and it goes on a narrated route through the interesting parts of the city. So, on we went, paying our money, and
honestly, for most of the route, we had the bus to ourselves.
The route was divided into various parts, and included a
trip to the “top” of the city – again, we had no idea that
Thessaloniki went up so high!
At various points in the city’s history (remembering that there have
been people here since the Neolithic) huge walls were built surrounding the
city, and we were able to go through one or two of the larger gates.
We passed buildings that had started out as
Roman Catholic churches, turned into mosques and later re-converted to Orthodox
churches.
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| Now those are candles! |
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| Agios Dimitrios |
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| Frescos |
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| In the crypt |
Thessaloniki had at one point a very large population of both Jews
and Turks along with the Greeks.
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| Detail from a capital in the crypt |
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| Another icon |
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| They call this parking? |
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| The Roman Agora |
The Turks were “moved” during the “population exchange” in
the early 1920’s (a very, very terrible period in the history of modern Turkey
and Greece, when the Greeks in Turkey were forced to move to Greece, and the
Turks in Greece were moved to Turkey – but not without a lot of bloodshed.) In fact, the modern “father” of Turkey, Kemel
Ataturk was actually born in Thessaloniki, Greece. His house has been turned into the Turkish
Embassy. And then the Jews, unfortunately,
about 48,000 of them, were rounded up and deported to Germany during WWII.
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| Beautiful vaulting in the agora |
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| Lots of Roman brick! |
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| Detail from Byzantine church - it's mosaic |
After doing a complete circuit, we decided to remain on the
bus and get off when it got to some of the Roman ruins that we wanted to see
more closely. So, we got off at stop
six, and headed first into the church of Agios
Dimitrios, which was built in the 5th century AD, but was
reconstructed at a later period after being looted and destroyed. I have to say that this church was simply
breathtaking. We neither of us know much
about the Greek Orthodox religion, with the sole exception of attending a
wedding in Glendale, CA once with Anne Vaughan of a gal who worked for me at
Art Center. I do remember the priest
there saying that really, the only difference between them and Roman Catholic
priests is that the Greek Orthodox priests are allowed to marry. Oh, and that they have a Patriarch and the
Roman Catholics have the Pope.
Be that as it may, the church was absolutely filled to the
rafters with icons. They were
everywhere. Some were in gold, with
painted faces, and some were in silver. Some
were painted, and some were done in mosaic.
We could read some of the names of their saints, and they included
relics in incredibly ornate boxes or containers and sitting inside smaller
chapels built inside the church. It was
quite overwhelming and impressive. I
would really like to have had more information about the history and the
stories of the people, but there was very little in any language other than
Greek.
From Agios Dimitrios,
we toured the old Roman Agora, which has been excavated. There were some really lovely stone and Roman
brick archways.
We then made our way into another, much less impressive,
Byzantine church, and finally started making our way back toward the car
park. We did stop for lunch – slices of
very good pizza – at a place called Foccachino. Pizza plus two bottles of water came to
something a little over 5€! Certainly
can’t beat that price!
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| One final icon |
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| Really good pizza! |
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| What a nice birthday surprise! |
By now, we were a bit leg weary, and we still had a long way
to walk. The traffic in the city is
amazing. Robert pointed out that you
really can’t tell if a lane is for driving or for parking, as these folks tend
to double, triple and quadruple park. It’s
insane! Even crossing the street can get
pretty dicey! What I love are the people
who literally drive one side of their vehicle up on a center meridian, and then
just leave the car there!
Incredible! (I think he took a
few photos to illustrate.)
Finally got to the car, and headed back to the hotel. We will settle the bill tonight, and be ready
to pull out nice and early to get to the airport in the morning.
We walked into our room, only to find that the wonderful
staff here at the hotel delivered a bottle of red wine, a bottle of water, and
a lovely tray full of all sorts of mini-desserts, in celebration of Robert’s 75th
birthday on Sunday! What amazing people –
and yum, the desserts are GREAT!
Tonight is also the massive “repacking” night, as everything
liquid and sharp needs to be out of carry-ons and into the checked bags. While I am the normal family packer, I
decided to call in the Big Gun on this repacking. Robert can pack more things than anyone I
have ever seen. So … I went and did
jigsaw puzzles on the computer, and R got us repacked. Have to say, we’ve got plenty of room, and I
honestly don’t know how he does it. I
just figured that if he were watching me, he’d start giving advice, and that
would not be a good thing at all. So, I
turned it over to the expert, and he came through once again!
Dinner tonight here at the hotel, and then we will be on our
way back to Paris tomorrow, where we will overnight!! So, more later!
m
xxx
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