Greece – Thessaloniki
Today, we said goodbye to Tanja and the others who were headed for Bulgaria. From around 50, we’re down to 20sh headed for Athens.
Left town around 8:30 am and reached Thessaloniki around 1 pm. It was scorching hot! Probably the hottest day for this trip so far.
Had lunch together with the group. The veggo burger I had was melt-in-the-mouth, made with zucchini, egg and grilled halloumi. The Cowboy and I shared a refreshing Greek salad.
We did not reconvene till around 4:10 pm, so we had enough time to walk around mostly the shops and then stopped for cuppa and drinks. It was an expensive break at Plasir, the hotel by Aristotle Square. My fresh orange juice cost 5 euros, more expensive than my lunch.
I noticed that the prices here were more expensive than the rest of the Balkans we’ve been to. I think Macedonia was the best for shopping, with a combination of good quality goods plus cheap prices. The Belgian girl in our group explained that because Greece is part of the EU, they had to factor in taxes to the price and have to be more or less in parity with the rest of the EU when it comes to market prices (though not too expensive as to make it unaffordable to locals given the unemployment rate).
That made so much more sense now why Macedonia was so much better value for money.
The bus-walk tour from 4pm, was a combination of bus ride and photo stops… which was good because I could only walk so long under the relentless sun. I actually felt my face burning!
The White Tower, Alexander the Great statue by the port, St. Dmitrius Church, residence of Mustafa Kamal Ataturk (who sounded like a very important figure for the Turks), fortress with panoramic city view and the arch built 1st century – were some of the highlights.
Checked in at Hotel Rotonda which was walking distance to the centre of town. It was probably the least quality of all the places we’ve stayed so far. I guess there’s the trade-off with price, location and quality.
We joined the group for dinner, as per Naya’s recommendation. It was a really great vibe with live Greek music and great food. Tried the garithes to see if it’s better here than the Happy Greek… at first, just from the presentation, thought Happy Greek’s better, but the taste was just exquisite here.
The prawns tasted so fresh. I pretty much cleaned up the sauce with the bread, couldn’t get enough of it. Stuffed!
