After reaching Thessaloniki, we caught the bus into town and
dropped our stuff off at our hotel.
That’s right, in countries that are not Norway, I can afford
hotels. After resting for a little bit,
we started walking through the city. We
found our way to the harbor and began to walk along the water towards the White
Tower. The White Tower currently
standing was built sometime after 1430 by the Ottomans. An inscription above the door dates it to the
1530’s, but it could be older.
It was part of Thessaloniki’s city walls and it was a main fortification
point.
From there we caught the city
bus #50 that serves as a tour bus.
It’s actually an ingenious idea.
A regular city bus runs a route that goes by all major tourist
attractions and a guide points them out.
You can get on and off as many times as you want that day for 2
euro. I would highly recommend it,
especially if you want to visit the upper walls as they are on top of a giant
hill and Greece is really hot in July.
We saw many sites on our way up the hill, such as the
University, town hall, YMCA, and several churches and ruins (Greece really is
full of old stuff). We hopped off the
bus at the Trigonia Tower. The tower is
still connected to what remains of the 4th century AD a Byzantine fortification
wall. While the walls are older, the
tower itself is most likely the same age as the White Tower on the harbor below.
While on top of the hill, we grabbed some ice cream and we
visited a monastery. The Vlatadon
Monastery founded about 1360 and is usually visited because of the paintings
from the 1300’s that decorate the building.
Unfortunately, when we were there, the church was closed. We did, however, see some peacocks. 
We walked around the walls and then headed back
to the bus, where, as it turned out, I had left my camera case. That was a lucky break. The bus wound through the city hearing
about the Hagia Sofia (a much smaller copy of the giant structure in Istanbul)
and the location of Atatürk’s birthplace (first president of the Republic of
Turkey).
After making back to the start of the bus tour we visited
the Arch of Galerius and Rotunda. The
Arch and church are from the 4th century and were built by the
Emperor Galerius to connect to his palace.
The Arch used to be covered in marble reliefs, however, now only a few
survive. The Rotunda Church has 6m thick
walls and was initially built to be either a temple or a mausoleum. However, after Galerius died he wasn’t buried
there and the building wasn’t used until Emperor Constantine I had it converted
to a church in the 4th century. It was
used as a church for 1200 years until the Ottomans took over and converted it
to a mosque in 1590. Then, it was
converted back to a church in 1912 after the Greeks got the city back during
the first Balkan War . Unfortunately, we
couldn’t go inside because it was too late in the day. Greek museums close at 3 pm these days due to
budget constraints. However, the inside
is supposed to have great mosaics.
From there, we wandered into yet another monastery with some
amazing paintings on the outside. Then,
we grabbed some salads at McDonalds and headed back to the hotel to shower and
sit in the air conditioning. The next
morning, I went to a bakery to grab some breakfast before we caught the bus
back to Bulgaria. All was going well
until the border. There was a problem
with the computer systems and since the bus had 2 non-Bulgarian passengers on
it, we caused everyone to have to sit at the border for almost 3 hours before
the computer problem was fixed and we were correctly processed. Yay technology! Anyway, I’m a little late in finishing my
Belgium-Norway-Greece adventure, but I finally got to it.
