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Though tokens of the past are evident throughout Thessaloniki, this cosmopolitan city, with its shopping thoroughfares and upscale districts, has become decidedly Western.
By ALAN LITTELL
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 2, 2001
THESSALONIKI, Greece -- Dating from classical antiquity, separated by a mountain range from the ethnic flash point of the former Yugoslavia, this sprawling port city of Greek Macedonia is a Mediterranean hybrid marked by the footprints of Greeks, Romans, Turks, Slavs and Jews of the Diaspora.
All of them either conquered or were conquered and absorbed. Across two millennia all combined to form a restless stew of exotic, often hostile, cultural identities.
Today, much has changed. While Greece at large remains an offshoot of the Balkan East -- tribal, xenophobic, inward looking -- the country's largest metropolis after Athens has morphed into a city of the West: a flamboyant, cosmopolitan, European city of tree-lined boulevards and fashionable boutiques.
In its shopping thoroughfares the traveler will find echoes of Paris and Milan. In the sweep of its crescent-shaped harbor and promenade, edged with luxury apartment blocks, can be seen the modern waterfront precincts of Marseilles or Trieste, Italy.
Still, tokens of the past survive. Thessaloniki (theh-suh-lahn-EE-kee) is also called Salonika. The city takes its name from a sister of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian warrior king who pushed Greek rule as far as India and Egypt. Founded about 315 B.C., the city grew to become a commercial hub of the caravan route stretching from Constantinople (now Istanbul) to Rome.
Visitors can stumble on ruins of a Roman market, a walled acropolis, Byzantine churches and domed Turkish hamams, or baths.
There are also the few melancholy relics of a once-defining Jewish presence that traced its roots to the time when a Greek-speaking Jew called Saul, better known in the Bible as Paul, preached the new religion of Christ in a harborside synagogue.
The easiest way to wander around town is simply to walk. Central Thessaloniki is laid out in a grid climbing from the waterfront to the heights of the old, walled, Turkish quarter -- all that is left of the 19th century city.
One sunny spring morning my wife and I rambled along the seafront from our hotel, the Makedonia Palace, to the handsome arcades of Aristotelous Square. From there we strolled north, turning on Irakliou Avenue to our first stop, a nondescript office building, No. 26.
Here ghosts of the past are recalled in the two-room Museum of the Course of Jewish History of Thessaloniki. Artifacts, photographs and accompanying texts provide a vivid account of a community that grew and prospered under 500 years of hospitable Turkish rule.
Touring this tiny museum, one is struck by the sense of a world irretrievably lost. By 1913, when Thessaloniki reverted to Greece from its Turkish rulers, Jews whose ancestors had migrated from Spain, Portugal and eastern Europe made up half the population.
Merchants conducted business in Ladino, a Spanish-Hebrew dialect. Shops and offices closed on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
In World War II, with a single stroke, Nazi invaders obliterated the Jews here. All but one of 36 synagogues were destroyed; the Jewish cemetery was bulldozed. The bulk of a prewar community of 49,000 perished in Hitler's death camps.
Jews today number no more than 1,200 in a city of 406,000.
Crossing Irakliou from the museum, we wandered through the huge main food market. In the Modiano, as it is known, visitors find the Salonika -- indeed the Greece -- they came expecting to see: a 2-acre hall of clamoring vendors; stalls overflowing with produce, meat and fish; cobbles slick with melting ice; aisles crowded with the hanging carcasses of sheep and goats.
A few steps away, on Komninon Street, we discovered the Louloudadika, or outdoor flower market, and the crumbling terra cotta walls of 16th century Turkish-Jewish baths. One now is called O Loutros, refurbished as a taverna whose tables spill out across the sidewalk under shade trees and beach umbrellas.
At O Loutros, fish is the specialty. My wife and I lunched sumptuously on kalamarakia (fried baby squid), a spinach-like green, horta, and white beans swimming in a savory oil-and-tomato sauce. The staple drink was resinated white wine drawn from the barrel. For travelers unaccustomed to the flavor of turpentine, retsina is an acquired taste.
If the Modiano Market and O Loutros symbolize all things Greek, then nearby Proxenou Koromilo Street lays claim to the Europe of glitz and glamor.
In a two- to three-block reach we ogled trendy window displays of womenswear at, among others, Expo and Avanti. Hip men's fashions were on show at Armani and offerings of minimalist furniture at Tezzera Designs.
There was also the restaurant that locals judge to be Thessaloniki's best. Where tavernas lean to the rough and ready -- waiters with cigarettes dangling from their lips, silverware wrapped in paper napkins -- Ta Nissia, at No. 13, appeals with attentive service, starched napery, gleaming crystal. And classic food: shrimp and mussels baked in cheese sauce, or tangy veal stifado, a pot roast laced with oil, wine vinegar and herbs.
Even with a crisp, dry Macedonian white wine, the bill for two is usually $50 or $60.
Proxenou Koromilo Street has no monopoly on Thessaloniki chic: 10 blocks north we meandered through the former red-light district, Ladadika, now a yuppie haven of discos, bars and upmarket tavernas.
Exteriors are mostly two-story neoclassical. Interiors reverberate to rock and rap.
East of Ladadika we spent most of an afternoon poking about the historic center. Between Filipou and Olymbou avenues, we paused near the excavated rubble of the old Roman agora (market).
Crossing Agiou Dimitriou Avenue, we viewed the crypt and stunning 8th century mosaics of the Church of St. Demetrius. It marks the tomb of an early Christian martyr, patron saint of the city.
On our final evening there, my wife and I walked out onto the harbor promenade to join the traditional scene of Greek seaside life: men and women strolling arm in arm as the sun dipped below the horizon. Lights winked on across the city.
We decided to veer inland from the port to the still-bustling Modiano Market. We shared a generous sampling dish of assorted seafood at the Myrovolos Smyrni taverna. We drank retsina from fluted tumblers.
Late into the night our fellow diners indulged their passion for crowds and noise. They shouted. They gesticulated. They smoked furiously.
A street accordionist drifted from table to table playing the keening riffs, the slides and quavers of blues-like rembetica.
Our waiter chewed absently on a toothpick. He had the straight bridgeless nose one sees on busts of that prototypical Macedonian, Alexander the Great.
In a city of the encroaching new, the taverna, the market and the people around us were a pocket of the atmospheric old: the essence, still, of Greece.
GETTING THERE: Thessaloniki is 45 minutes from Athens by air. Olympic Airways has frequent service.
STAYING THERE: The country code for telephoning Greece from the U.S. is 30, preceded by 011.
Best bets for comfort and convenience include, on the harborfront, the Makedonia Palace Hotel, 2 Alexander the Great Ave. (Call 31-897197; $150-165 double, without breakfast.) In the city center: the Electra Palace Hotel, 9 Aristotelous Square, (31-232221; $102-$150 double, with breakfast) and Hotel ABC, 41 Angelaki St. (31-265421; $75-$95 double, with breakfast).
SIGHTSEEING: The Museum of the Course of Jewish History of Thessaloniki, 26 Irakliou Ave., is open 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday-Friday; admission is free.
The White Tower Museum (early Christian art, photos of 19th and 20th century Salonika), Nikis Avenue on the harborfront; 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday; admission is free.
The Archaeological Museum (gold, pottery, art, artifacts), Andronikou Ave.; 12:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; admission, about $4.60.
A few miles outside the city, attractions include the museum and ruins at Pella, birthplace of Alexander the Great, and the treasures and royal tomb of Alexander's father, Philip II of Macedonia, at Vergina. Doukas Tours, at 8 Venezelou St. (31-276071), operates daylong coach excursions to the two sites. The cost is $33.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact the Greek National Tourist Organization, 645 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10022; call (212) 421-5777. The GNTO's city office in Thessaloniki, with English-speaking staff, is at 8 Aristotelous Square. Brochures and maps are available without charge.
- New York resident Alan Littell maintains an apartment in Athens and visits Greece frequently.