A long weekend in Thessaloniki

I am not doing so well at this regular blogging lark. Maybe I should increase my intake of internet bran.
Anyway, we spent a long weekend in Thessaloniki (hence the snappy title) last weekend and rather than keep repeating myself and enthusing at people over and over, I decided to blog it.
Firstly, this is a note to myself and others to remind that connecting flights and ungodly check-in times might seem like a good idea at the time of booking and indeed often afford a more cost-effective mode of travel, but they are grim. Having said that, we had chance to potter round Zürich for a few hours on the way out there, which was actually really nice. They have the world's largest clock face there, would you believe? (see photo to left).
Also, I must explain why the photos are not the best quality. It is also a misconception that you can buy whatever you like in duty free. We thought we would bag ourselves a tax-free digital SLR in the land of cow bells and cheese, but didn't count on there being exactly two cameras in the shop, neither of which were suitable. You live and learn. We found some pear-flavoured vodka though, which will take me 10 years to drink at my light-weight drinking pace.
We finally arrived in Thessaloniki at some point in the middle of the night. It was still warm though and we were met by our Greek friend, the Niki in Thessaloniki, which was all boding well for a nice and sunny four days.
We awoke on our first day not particularly early. Actually, that is a lie. We got up not particularly early but we were awoken at some undetermined time by a noise that sounded like hell itself opening. Turns out that Greek bin men have some really hefty machinery and visit every day. It also turns out that the Greek equivalent of the rag and bone man visits daily; we were in two minds as to whether to wake up our host to check it wasn't the 4-minute warning or something similar! The watermelon seller is much more melodious though and gives us no cause for concern. After a tasty breakfast involving spanokopita (I've just finished the last piece we brought home, but remembered that I have some spinach in the fridge - get in!) on Niki's balcony (see right), we set off into Thessaloniki to meet up with our friends from Holland.
Thessaloniki is Greece's second city and it's pretty large. We walked all along the harbourfront to the so-called White Tower. It was a prison at one point and it isn't very white, but we had to see it. 28 degrees, sunny weather and a nice blue sea gave us an appetite so we paid our first visit to Zythos - a bar/restaurant with very tasty food. We stayed there for ours, learning how to pronounce 'courgette fritters' in Greek and catching up on the last few months since we had all met up. Greek food rules and I'd forgotten how good Mythos beer tastes. There was a Greek musical luminary there, whose name I have forgotten, getting rather ticked off at people with cameras, and a dog asleep in a hedge, which convinced us that Zythos is the place to be.
It still wasn't cold, but it was time for bed and to see if the bin men would be coming again. They did but it didn't deter us from sleeping! After some more breakfast spanokopita we started Saturday with some wandering about. Our base is about 10 minutes on the bus from the centre of town but the buses are pretty good and we didn't encounter any traffic. We saw some older parts of the town, which was quite tourist-free apart from all the knock-off handbags (Paul Frnak anyone?). A visit to a chocolate cafe to rival Slattery's ensued, followed by a lot of sitting around. We had a birthday in our midst so felt it necessary to head to taverna-ville. Of course it isn't called that, but there is an area of town filled with tavernas and men trying to get you to visit their own taverna. Having a Greek guide, we were ushered to a much less touristy-looking one near a cobbler's manned by 2 elderly gentlemen who showed no sign of having done any work until about 9pm when the machines started to whirr. We ate the compulsory halloumi and fried courgette amongst many tasty treats and had our first experience of dakos salad (see rather poor picture to the left!) Dakos is a fried bread from Crete with all the salad and dressings on top. A large crouton I suppose. It was very tasty in any case, as was everything we ate. Not being particularly well up on Greek customs (we were advised not to start lobbing our plates around), we were amazed by the free desert and peculiar drink that emerged at the end of the meal and headed off to a rock bar to try to digest. This took a while! After some discussions about Welsh road signs, we got word that we were to meet some more Greeks in a Caribbean cocktail bar in an old house. Well, it's not often you get an invitation like that is it? Habanero was certainly an interesting place and Niki's friends were all very friendly. Due to the lack of measures in Greek drinks, and my penchant for not really drinking very much, I cautiously approached a caparainha as I have never actually had one and didn't fancy a mojito after the time when I broke 2 glasses trying to make one at home. It was like lighter fuel so I sipped at it and left most of it behind. I felt quite rock n roll to still be up past 2am so we went to a very peculiar bar called Augustus for a squash in a corner and a glass of swimming pool. Finally hit the sack at some ungodly hour and awaited the dustbinmen.
Day 3 of our Greek Odyssey didn't really get going till quite late on as we may be very rock 'n' roll staying up so late but still need our sleep. I am sure the bin men came twice. It's a Sunday, it's baking hot, what do you do? Answer: Head to the local sailing club for a very tasty lemon slush and to point and giggle at the Greek equivalents of Sienna Miller and Kate Moss. My sunglasses were far too small and I was wearing sensible shoes so I sat quietly out of the spotlight. We sat there for ages, putting the world to rights and watching some massive blue jellyfish bob past. We'd not had any haloumi for about 16 hours so we decanted to a sea-side taverna where we offended the owner with our vegetarianism, prompting him to ask if we wanted any broccoli shakes. More tasty food again and some Greek wine which didn't taste of bins. Very nice! We headed back to 'our' appartment for some chatting and a fairly night in preparation for us going out on our own for our last day in Thessaloniki.
We did it! We got on the right bus and got off it at the right stop to meet our friends from the Netherlands at the archaeological museum. It was all very interesting but we were having halloumi withdrawal and had to go to Zythos to have another go at making the waiters giggle at us ordering the kolokothekeftades. We finally found some postcards on the way though and a cart that was the nearest to a souvenir shop. Result! We met our Greek hostess with the mostess for a trip to the other of Thessaloniki's sea-side restaurants, the Kitchen Bar and I ate a big, fat, Greek salad. It was our last night there and with the prospect of a 4:45 am flight to Zürich looming, we bought some Greek chocolates and headed 'home'. Niki's mum came by for a while to see us, which was nice, and kindly brought us some souvenir spinach pie to bring home. It has all gone now as I mentioned before. We also had a ferret round some local shops for an amusingly named product to bring home but had to make do with some chocolates called Derby and some Greek top trumps about commercial shipping. Our short break was at an end, my sinuses were wonderfully clear due to the absence of British weather, and we left before the bin men had even been. Hopefully it won't be too long before we're back there and sampling the delights again but in the mean time we are reminiscing on a newly created Facebook group. We may be more technologically advanced since the last time I went there (1996) but we're all the same deep down.