2022 World Tour – Thessaloniki, Greece
Hello from Thessaloniki, my 52nd stop on the trip but not a new country as I’ve been to Greece twice before, in 1992 and 2015.
Below is the standard summary:
– Cool Ranch Doritos: No, but I was tricked by a light blue Doritos bag!
– Thai ATM Card Works: Yes
– Thai Debit Card Works: Yes but declined about 50% of the time for no reason
– Thai Internet Purchase Works: Yes
– USA Credit Card Works: Didn’t try
– Worldwide Telephone/Data/SMS eSIM Works: Yes
– Spanish SIM Card Works: Didn’t try
– Magic Jack Works: Didn’t try
– VPN Works: Yes, needed because Greece blocks the good TV and movie download sites
– COVID Compliance Chronicles: Mask needed to get on a ferry but not once inside
– Internet Works: Yes
– Drone Flights: Not without certification and flight notification
– Cost of Living: $$$, luckily it’s low season
– Currency: Euro ⬠1.00 = USD $0.97
– Language Issues: None
Your Short History Lesson:
Long considered the cradle of western civilization and democracy, Greece has many millennia of history. Back to the 8th century BC, there were many well-known and powerful city-states in the region such as Athens, Sparta and Rhodes. These were pulled together in the 4th century BC by Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander The Great. As this era of Greece declined it was annexed by Rome in the 2nd century BC as the Romans spread far and wide. The Ottoman Empire rolled through in the 15th century but Greece fought for and gained independence in 1830. The Danish royal family somehow slid in and ruled until a military coup in 1967. This collapsed in 1974 and Greece has been an independent democracy ever since. Greece is a member of the UN, EU, Eurozone and NATO. Greece went through an economic collapse in the late 2000s leading to severe austerity programs and bailouts but seems to have recovered. Fun fact: Queen Elizabeth’s husband Price Philip, of the Danish and Greek royal families, was born in Corfu in 1921 and smuggled out of Greece in a fruit crate during the Greco-Turkish war.
Greece is the penultimate country on my trip and a great way to wind up my travels by island-hopping in the still-warm October of southern Europe. In Sofia I headed to the bus stop, found the right ticket office and got a boarding pass in 30 seconds. There are 50 people standing around the bus area, all smoking. Once we were allowed on board, there were only 6 of us headed to Thessaloniki. I had a nice chat with a new MBA grad woman whose father works for Boeing, and a guy from Albuquerque who does hundred-mile walks for fun. We had an easy border crossing – handed our passport to the Bulgaria window to leave, moved 2 meters to the Greek window to enter, and then back on the bus.
OK, I’ve got another unattended-apartment nightmare. I contacted my AirBnB host from my 2015 trip but they told me they gave up the apartment in the city and now grow olives full-time out in the countryside somewhere. My booked apartment hosts of course have a lockbox with the key at the location, but they wouldn’t give me the code for it before 3pm. Urgh! I rolled for half an hour uphill through the city to the address. 3pm comes and goes, no message with the code. I have been messaging with them through the Booking.com system since the original booking, so I pinged them again – just give me the 4 digit code. The response was “I have informed your Accommodation Supervisor to contact you as soon as possible to guide you by phone, cause i saw noted in the agenda that you dont have any Viber or Whatsapp Application.” We are literally already messaging on the Booking platform, there’s no need to move to yet another fucking messaging app for you to send me 4 DIGITS. 10 minutes later I get a long message with a dozen pictures showing me where to get on the elevator, where to get off the elevator, turn right and go down the hallway, look for #2. Look, this is not my first time being in an apartment building! Then to top it all off, none of the rooms on the 8th floor HAVE NUMBERS ON THE DOORS! I figure out which door it is from the picture and the KEY DOESN’T WORK! I’m beyond pissed at this point. I message back that the key doesn’t work and they sent a kid about 30 minutes later. Oh they put the wrong key in the lockbox, duh! I get in the room and find the Wifi is resetting every 5 seconds. I hack into the router, find out that it’s 12 years old but nothing obviously wrong, reboot it but it’s still no good. Another message to them, the kid comes out and power cycles it, no improvement. He goes out and buys a new router and bam it works well. Jeez. Luckily there’s a very nice grocery store right next to the apartment and I treat myself to chips, chocolate and real Coke Light – the first I’ve seen since I left Spain, I’ve had to settle for Coke Zero everywhere. I walked aimlessly through the city in the evening, had a nice chicken kebab and tzatziki dinner, the first of many here I suspect.
The next morning I watched the video of Tesla AI Day #2 where they introduced the prototype Optimus robot and the deep, deep dive into how they build and improve the Full Self Driving system. I wanted to get a good deal so I booked my flight home from Istanbul to Bangkok for October 31. I found a great deal on IndiGo but its credit card policies were so restrictive that none of my three cards were good enough. I had to pay about â¬200 more on Royal Jordanian, with a stopover in Amman which should be interesting as I’ve never been there before. Can’t count it as a new country though because I won’t be leaving the airport…
Google Maps doesn’t have the public transport system here which is a bummer, but I found an app called Moovit that’s good enough. In previous locations I’ve made a list of places to see and then used Google Maps to work out an optimal walking path, because me. Then I wrote them down in order on a piece of paper. What I just discovered is that I can put each location as a stop in a single walking trip and then drag/drop the stops order to give the optimal path – sweet! The downside is Maps doesn’t think you’ve reached a stop until you go to the EXACT point it has marked, which isn’t always the obvious place like in front of the cathedral, so I had to walk to each point at which it would let me dismiss that stop. I can live with that.
First was the Roman Forum, a large area mostly covered in grass with an amphitheater at one end. Then to Aristotelus Square next to the harbour, then the Ladadika shopping area, then I tried to find a ferry ticket agency, but nothing is open. Walked 500m to the ferry terminal and talked with the very nice girl there who said there is only one ferry leaving Thessaloniki PER WEEK and it goes today at 9pm headed to Mykonos and takes 26 hours. It’s â¬98 for a chair, â¬218 for a bed. If I take it, I lose 2 paid nights in the apartment plus really expensive ferry trip. She recommended taking the bus to Athens and then one of three ferry companies to Mykonos every day, which is a much better plan. From there I walked to the White Tower, deja vu all over again from being here in 2015, except it was winter and I remember walking past the tower and a long way along the waterfront looking for hot chocolate. Then to the Alexander the Great statue, a group of Instagram girls were doing a dance routine right in front of it, jeez. Then across to what looked like a farmer’s market but it was 40 vendors, all selling honey! There was a young guy flying a Chinese drone, either he’s not very good or the stability control is really bad. I asked him about the rules to fly here and he says no problem, just don’t fly near an airport or over people’s heads. Of course I checked later and he’s completely wrong, so no flights here for me. Then on to the Arch of Galerius and the Rotunda next door and down to the Hagia Sophia, which curiously has the same name as the grand mosque in Istanbul. I stopped at a restaurant near home and tried to get chicken with tzatziki but they didn’t have it today so I settled on shrimp in tomato sauce with peppers, and feta cheese in pastry with honey for appetizer and a local beer.
If you’ve read this far, put one word, your favourite word, into the comments below and don’t explain why you did it if anyone asks.
The next morning I did my Turkey e-Visa, it’s the only one I had to apply for on the whole trip and it costs â¬50, just a way to suck more money out of the tourists I suppose. I made contact with my relocation agent in Barcelona and got information on the apartment purchasing process and personal goods shipping details. I watched the Formula 1 Singapore race, typical chaos in the rain. I spent the afternoon walking uphill past a cemetery and tried to get through a hospital parking lot but it was permanently padlocked closed at the top so I reported it on Google Maps. Walked back down then up the main road along the old city defense wall. Walked up to the Trigonion Tower and then back down again after dark, the tower and walls lit up beautifully.
Is it worth a visit? As the almost co-capital of Greece, it’s steeped in history, with an extensive waterfront and many, many things to see. Even though I was here in 2015 I got some new experiences and enjoyed it, it’s a place you should definitely visit.
Next Stop: Athens, Greece
