All Different Roads

After a brisk 4 days in Rome we headed south to the Campania region of Italy. Most people visiting Campania head directly to the Amalfi coast and its scenic towns like Sorrento and Positano. We had other plans and we set off for Naples. Naples has a serious – and completely undeserved – image problem. Everyone told us that Naples is dangerous, dirty, and full of criminals and pickpockets who will stab you. The Internet is full of negative press with articles like ‘Why no one wants to travel to Naples’.

This is the Amalfi coast. We did not go to the Amalfi coast.

We went to Naples. (in all fairness this was during a garbage strike, but you get the gist.)

I sincerely do not understand this image of Naples. Sure, there’s a bit of garbage and riff-raff , but Naples is a fabulous urban environment– far exceeding expectations and definitely in my top 5 cities of the trip. It is a young, frenetic, and passionate city, with hustler types zooming around on mopeds 3-passengers deep. Neapolitans eat most meals out and the street food is exquisite, accessible, and really damn cheap. Lovely espresso and sweets can be found on every street corner and we haven’t eaten so well for so cheap since Asia. The walls of alley ways are embedded with gaudy Virgin Madonna shrines reminiscent of Buddhist ancestor shrines. Actually, Naples reminds me a lot of Ho Chi Minh City so perhaps it’s not surprising that we loved it.

A view over Naples from Capodimonte hill.

There are lots of windy little rabbit warrens. I love it.

Some very Italian cuteness is happening.

View over one of the poorer areas near the catacombs.

There’s definitely some ‘shanty’ going on.

Oh, how they love the Madonna. There are shrines every 3 feet.

They also love these gaudy figurines, probably to put in shrines. They are also everywhere.

Neapolitan Street Food

We did a street food tour our first evening in Naples and it was the perfect way to get the lay of the land. We ate bread-crumb biscuits, mozzarella di bufala, and the best margarita pizza at Pizzeria dal Presidente (evidently Bill Clinton ate there – I’m skeptical). For sweets we ate Naples’s signature pastry, the sfogliatella, which is basically a crunchy puff pastry stuffed with orange scented ricotta cheese. My favorite vendor was an old lady who makes a famous fizzy lemonade. She’s been making it at the same stall on the same marble countertop for 77 years. Think about that – she started making lemonades during WWII and she’s still at it. The marble countertop has a deep pit in the middle from the 77-years worth of fizzy lemonades that have flowed over it. Wow.

Old school fizzy lemonade. This little old lady has been at it for 77-years…

Pizza!!! This started a dangerous 2 pizza a day habit.

Sfogliatella- my heaven. Anything with ricotta and orange can’t be beat.

We went to a limoncello factory. It smelled amazing.

Limoncello!!! They had a creamy one that was particularly tastey.

Baba – another Neapolitan pastry – is a yeasted cake soaked in syrup.

The best part of our food tour, however, was the company – specifically a mesmerizing family from the British midlands we nicknamed ‘The Roonies’. They were characters. Ma Roonie (age approx. 35-45) was dressed like a demented pixie at Burning Man – pink hot pants, pink hair, a belly shirt, and copious glitter. Pa Roonie (age approx. 45) was a Cockney-plumber-meathead; an interesting hybrid, really, and an unexpected spousal choice for a pixie. There were two lil’ Roonies, (age approx. 8 and 11), sporting extremely tight t-shirts, serious hiking boots, and fanny packs with water bottles that Ma and Pa compulsively filled with Liptons iced tea.

The lil’ Roonies were miniature Karl Pilkingtons, and their solemn demeanor and thick Cockney accents made everything they said an unintentional punch line. In addition to working through golf ball sized suckers, their goal for the evening seemed to be to ‘nab’ various cutleries at each food stop. “Just nabbed it,” each lil’ Roonie would announce as he displayed a new acquisition and stashed it in his fanny pack. Ma Roonie continually mentioned some mosaics she’d seen depicting a man with ‘two willies’ and Pa Roonie seemed on the verge of a ‘roid rage collapse at any minute. Another woman on the tour was a proper stiff-upper lip Brit who just happened to be from the same crappy town in the midlands as the Roonies. When she found this out her face crumpled and I really thought Ma Roonie was going to hug her. Thanks for the great evening, Roonies!!! We’ll never forget you.

The San Gennaro and San Gaudioso Catacombs

Naples was hot so it was fortuitous that there are some cool underground attractions (pun intended). Naples has several ancient catacomb systems, the best preserved of which are San Gennaro and San Gaudioso. Originally built around 200 AD, the catacombs house lovely Greek era frescos and some of the oldest Christian paintings in the world. In the late Middle Ages the catacombs were buried in a huge mudslide and the complexes were mostly forgotten (except for a period of super creepy revival at San Gaudioso during the 1700s, see below).

The San Gennaro is full of frescos from many eras.

A Greek-era fresco depicting the 3 fates building a tower.

This was a pre-Christian temple, and the imagery is really unique.

Here is a Byzantine mosaic depicting a mother, father, and little girl who are buried in this private crypt.

This fresco is thought to be the world’s oldest depiction of Jesus.

A peacock representing the paradise of the afterlife.

The San Gennaro complex is fairly tame and felt like a lovely old church (albeit underground). The many passages split off to beautifully decorated private tombs and the central chapel houses the remains of Naples’ first patron saint, St. Agrippinus. The San Gaudioso catacomb, however, is very macabre and catacomb-y. Unlike the San Gennaro complex, San Gaudioso was partially uncovered in the 1700s and was briefly used between 1740 and 1763. It became fashionable for wealthy Neapolitans to commission bizarre funerary displays where the deceased’s head was displayed above a fresco painted skeleton body. The frescos depict outfits and accessories to denote profession for social standing and are often framed with glib quotes like, “Today it was my turn, tomorrow it will be yours.” It’s creepy.

Creepy!!! I guess that these ladies were friends. Their skulls have decomposed.

This was the last guy to be entombed in the San Gaudioso catacomb. Lucky him.

This was the first room excavated at the San Gaudioso catacomb. They think that the niches in the walls were for monk’s skulls, but no one knows.

These spooky tunnels go on forever.

The modern-day revival and restoration of the catacombs is a wonderful story of grassroots activism. A group of childhood friends who grew up near the catacombs took it upon themselves to preserve this part of Naples’ heritage, and in 2006 founded a non-profit agency called Cooperativa La Paranza to fund their work. The whole thing – excavation, preservation, and the tourist infrastructure – is done without government funding and provides employment and investment for the surrounding neighborhood. This is a very poor area of Naples and the pride that everyone takes in this project is very uplifting.

Underground Roman Market

We also visited an underground Roman era agora, or marketplace. Like the catacombs, this Roman marketplace was buried in a mudslide and abandoned. Medieval churches were built on top of the site and the structures were forgotten for centuries. The vast complex of ancient streets was discovered after WWII when construction workers noticed that parts of the floor echoed as if they were hollow. Excavation began in 1990 and now the site is accessible through the basement of a quiet church. It’s incredible that you can descend down a narrow staircase and be inside a perfectly preserved Roman market. The function of various shops and stalls is still evident, and our guide took us to a laundry facility, a bakery, and the fish cleaning area – pretty amazing.

Tables for cleaning fish. The slant allows drainage and the alcove underneath was storage.

More fish tables. The walls have a unique construction designed to withstand earthquakes.

A view down the marketplace.

This doorway leads to the laundry facility.

This is part of a vessel used to collect urine to fix dye colorants to clothing. It’s right next to the laundry. Yum.

Pompeii

To complete our ancient cities experience we made a day trip from Naples to the archeological site at Pompeii for yet another hot and dusty day of Roman ruins. We’re definitely a bit ‘Roman-ruin’-ed out by this point (seriously, how did they build soooo much), but Pompeii was objectively very cool. Covered in a thick ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, Pompeii is one of the best-preserved Roman cities in the world. The city still bears the hallmarks of being an ancient trading city and the streets show grooves from wheels of trader’s wagons. The city was full of commerce, and shops, temples, restaurants, and of course the famous brothels line the many streets. Visiting such a well-preserved site really lets you imagine the scale and feel of what it was like to walk the ancient streets in its heyday, and despite Roman-overload it was pretty interesting.

A view over the forum of Pompeii to Mt. Vesuvius.

Another hot dusty day of Roman ruins.

The mosaic tiled floors are lovely.

The famous ‘menu’ at the brothel.

A central tub in the men’s bath-house. This place was huge.

A variety of wall constructions were meant to withstand earthquakes. Volcanos, not so much.

A main street cutting across Pompeii. You really get the sense of scale here.

The amphitheater.

This was the gladiator work-out area.

See how long this blog post is? I could write about Naples all day. We saw and ate so many great things during our time there – I really love Naples. After 5 days in the frenetic city, we took a ferry to our next destination, the quiet island of Lipari off the coast of Sicily.

Rome in August?!?! What were we thinking? As reality set in we were both a little tempted to make another crowd avoidant gypsy detour. Alas, you can’t stay with the gypsies forever and somehow we pulled ourselves together for the hardest challenge of our travel boot camp to date. It was super hot, it was super crowded, and it was super expensive, but luckily the fabulousness of Rome was all worth it. The Vatican, not so much… but we’ll get to that.

Rome

Rome was very cool – a bit of a ‘Disneyland’ version of itself but it was inarguably cool. We stayed in Rome’s central Monte neighborhood and it was a perfect hub for exploring the city on foot. This was a necessity since the public transportation in Rome is S-H-I-T – incredibly it’s even worse than Athens. Monte is full of restaurants, cafes, and cute little shops that all seemed to be closed for the summer. Even though August is the high season for tourism, many businesses are closed because Italians want to take off the whole month (duh, who doesn’t). They’ll just post a little note on the door saying, “Closed August 6^th – 30^th”. It’s super irritating if you’ve, say, schlepped across town for a pizzeria or nail salon and find out its closed for the month. I simultaneously curse and envy this trait of Italian culture.

So this is apparently some famous fountain near where we stayed.

I accidentally stumbled upon it. Doesn’t it just look charming?

My new favorite thing is ‘skip-the-line’ tours and we booked one to visit the major sites of ancient Rome. By this point in the trip, we’ve seen more Roman ruins than I can count in places like Lebanon, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Crete, and even a potential (albeit unproven) Roman fortress in Uzbekistan. The Romans left their mark all over the world and it was quite exciting to finally see the Empire’s HQ with our own eyes.

Our first stop in Ancient Rome was the Colosseum – the indisputable crown jewel of Rome. Built between 72 and 80 AD, the massive structure was constructed by 20,000 slaves to host public shows like gladiator fights and executions (what fun!). The intact-ness of the structure is amazing and you can easily imagine just how impressive this place was when it was full of 50,000+ Roman citizens. I keep wondering how many people over the millennia have had some experience with is building – Romans who saw a show, medieval travelers who glimpsed it from the road, and modern day tourists who climb all over it. The Colosseum has to be the (or one of the) most visited and observed buildings in the history of the world, and that’s pretty cool.

The Colosseum!!!

We made it to Rome. We already look tired.

The interior capacity is incredible. Originally the central part was a wooden floor to host the events.

Quite the place to see a spectacle, I bet.

The view from the lower level up.

Next we walked toward the Roman Forum, the center of political discourse and decision making in the Roman Empire. It’s fascinating to think that the ideas and activities of the forum grew out of the unassuming Pnyx in Athens. Surrounding the Forum are the Temple of Vesta (home of the Vestal Virgins), the incredibly understated tomb of Julius Caesar, and like 1,000 other monuments that would be the highlight of any other city. All of these monuments and ruins are crowded together densely and its utterly amazing to consider how much of our current culture, values, and ideals sprung from discussions and debates held in this geographically small place.

Tons of Roman stuff around the forum.

More columns. There were so many columns!

This door dates to the 3rd century. I honestly can’t remember anything else about this building.

An triumphal arch commemorating the sack of Jerusalem.

A famous dude. Maybe Julius Caesar?

Our final stop was the Pantheon, a Roman temple built in 27 AD and dedicated to the worship of all gods, past and present. At the beginning of the 7^th century the pagan temple was converted to a Christian basilica. It’s a little weird, actually, but I guess it’s pretty. Maybe we just had a case of monument-fatigue by this point in our day… it happens.

The Pantheon. It was weird.

The interior of the Pantheon was quite gaudy.

But the dome is exactly as wide as the building is tall!!! And this was something!!!

The Vatican

We also visited the Vatican on a ‘skip-the-line’, and thank god we did or I would have murdered someone waiting in the hours-long line. As part of visiting the Vatican, you ‘see’ the highlights of the Vatican museum (i.e. be physically near to said highlights behind 500 people), visit the Basilica of St. Peter, get ‘shushed’ in the Sistine Chapel, and walk the Vatican grounds. The Vatican sucked – categorically sucked. We were contractually obliged as ‘tourists-in-Rome’ to visit the Vatican but I wouldn’t do it again. Luckily for me now I don’t have to.

I don’t have much to say about the art in the Vatican museum, not only because I didn’t really ‘see’ anything but because the only memory I was able to commit to long term storage was of being hot and herded like a cat. We saw some cool maps, some gaudy tapestries, and lots of stuff made out of marble. This is the extent of my memory.

Basically every gallery was like this.

We did see a cool map with the island of Lipari. We’re going there so this pleased us.

The highlight of the Vatican were the futile attempts by Vatican staff to maintain a reverent and peaceful atmosphere in the Sistine chapel. The chapel rules are no photos and no speaking, but of course barbarian tourists don’t heed. The mucho-serious guards dodge and weave through the crowds swatting iPhones out of the hands of photo-eager Chinese grannies. Every 3 minutes or so, an ominous ‘voice of god’ comes out of some hidden speakers to shush the crowd. “SILENCE!!! SHUSH!!!!!” Jeff and I used to go to a schtik-y bar in the NYC with a monastic theme and a strict code of silence – any chatty-pants would be aggressively shushed by the bartenders. The Sistine chapel is kind of like that bar, but a lot less fun.

Headin’ the the Sistine Chapel. Oh boy.

Inside Saint Peter’s Basilica. At least it was big so the crowds were less hideous.

After like 3 hours in the Vatican, we were shuffled toward the gates and thus ended our visit to the Pope’s house. Check and mark. Tourist obligations fulfilled.

Hot, tired, and a teeny bit traumatized by the Italian tourism industrial complex, Jeff and I took a high-speed train south from Rome to our next stop – Naples.

After a week of rural charm we headed to Crete’s southern coast for a week of beach time in the town of Ierapetra. Ierapetra is a sleepy city and our AirBnb host was amazed that three Americans had ventured to her town. “All the way here? From America?” Well it’s not like we swam or anything but point well taken. While the northern Mediterranean side of Crete has a robustly developed tourist infrastructure, southern Crete’s Libyan sea is fairly remote and craggily. We ran into a few Russians, a handful of Italians, and that was pretty much it. There aren’t any big resorts or package deals around and that is precisely the draw. The southern coast is beautifully austere and the slow pace of life feels like a time capsule of Greek island life over the centuries.

Ierapetra’s claim to fame is that Napoleon sought safe harbor here in 1798 on his way to Egypt. The house where he supposedly stayed is the flimsiest tourist site ever and the less said about this the better. Beyond the lameness of Napoleon’s house, Ierapetra is a pleasant and quiet little town with a sleepy waterfront strip (they loved us there), some calm beaches for locals, and very little to do except relax.

Napoleon stayed here. Once. Over 200 years ago.

Yep, this is it.

Our Airbnb host was one of a (very) small contingent of Ierapetra-hipsters and she had fabulous recommendations for food and shopping around the southern coast. We made food pilgrimages to several little villages around Ierapetra to eat at tavernas she had recommended and every suggestion was spot on. Our favorites were a seafood place called ‘Schedia’ in Eparchiaki Odos (kitties!!!) and a glorious taverna called ‘Kapilio’ in the tiny village of Monesteraki at the base of the impressive Ha Gorge (they had kitties too!!!). Both places were very cool, very old school, and very, very Cretan. At Kapilio we spent the evening chatting with one of the owners who along with her husband (clearly foodies), had taken over the 50-year old taverna a few years back. They make only a few dishes each night but everything they do is delicious.

I have no idea how we got this photo. This little guy was quite tolerant.

Ha Gorge behind Monestiraki.

Another restaurant kitty!!! He was slepy.

The ‘village’ of Monestiraki. So tiny, so cute.

We visited a handful of nearby beaches around Ierapetra, but far and away our favorite was Myrtos. According to Wikipedia, Myrtos was ‘discovered’ by the hippies in the 70’s, and today is an extremely cute beach town with just the right amount of infrastructure and development. There are about a dozen restaurants and shops, a nicely groomed beach, and a handful of holiday rental apartments. Our favorite beach spot was right outside of a cafe called Ca’Nova, and the cafe provides free sun beds to patrons. The place is owned by an Italian family and the homemade pasta was heaven. Grannie spends her days making raviolis in the sun and generously gave me a lesson on how to maintain ravioli integrity (pinch the seams harder than you’d think, she says).

This is my new hobby I developed in Myrtos.

The view from our bed at Ca’Nova cafe.

The Myrtos coastline.

We’ve never actually done a holiday that involved so much beach time and I think I finally understand why the Euros are so beach obsessed. Usually gearing up to go to the beach feels like a production but if you do it for multiple days in a row it becomes an easy routine. There is a nice rhythm to setting up a beach camp, lounging with cappuccinos and frappes, swimming occasionally, and basically spending the entire day reading in the shade. I think that all three of us took a liking to it.

Like our rural time in Apostoli, our time on the southern coast was a great way to see a side of quiet Crete. There are no ‘must see’ sights and you need some time to soak in the atmosphere, but it was such a treat for us at this point in the trip. After a lazy week, we bid adieu to my sister Callie and prepared for our expedition to the inner most ring of the tourism inferno – Rome in August.

I continually confuse Cyprus and Crete, and how could I not? They’re both Greek islands of nearly identical size and shape, they have remarkably similar geography, and they both start with ‘C’. Honestly, the biggest difference between the two islands is that Cypriots are adamant about how staunchly Greek they are and Cretans are adamant about how staunchly non-Greek they are. Fine, I’ll honor whatever heritage Cyprus and Crete want to claim since both islands are so freaking magical and delicious, but really…. come on, they are pretty similar.

Apostoli

Jeff and I visited Crete a few years ago and were delighted to have two-weeks on this trip to visit some of Crete’s lesser explored nooks and crannies. Basically every part of Crete that isn’t a beach is a lesser explored nook and cranny so we had a lot of ground to cover. We spent our first Cretan week right in the center of the island in the wee mountain village of Apostoli, which is the archetypical ideal of a wee mountain village. Apostoli has about 400 people, one taverna, one super old church, and a lot of cats. I never elucidated why but every day at 6:50 PM spooky and slightly insane sounding singing came out of the church, and went on for exactly 20 minutes. That was a highlight. The village streets were darling and steep, and we were able to pick figs and lemons for our brekky on evening walks. Yeah, it was ridiculous.

How darling is Apostoli?

Here’s the old church with daily spooky singing.

The view from our front door.

A windy mountain path leading up to olive groves.

Another view of our cute home in Apostoli.

The view over the Kastelli valley.

Sunset view over Kastelli valley.

It can be hard to truly get a sense for life in a rural place since people tend to be old and reserved, but our wonderful AirBnb hosts went above and beyond in showing us life in their village. Manolis and Nopi (and their two sweet sons) took over the family farm about 5 years ago and now grow everything organically. They produce excellent honey, olive oil, fresh produce, eggs, and even offer orgone treatments (you might need to read about orgone here…). In the evenings the family spends time on their terrace chatting with their guests and taking in the incredible evening sky with their telescope (we saw a partial lunar eclipse!).

Jeff prepping for his orgone treatment.

Next it was my turn for orgone.

Let me out!!! It was like 1,000 degrees in that thing.

The olive orchards around the organic farm.

Some amazing sea salt that Manolis had harvested himself from the sea.

Sheep herds roaming the farm.

Moon rise was particularly pretty.

Adventures Around the Island

From Apostoli we made a day trip to the beachside town of Agios Nicholas, where we visited a working olive oil farm and took a cooking class. The cooking class was irrationally fun for me and we learned how to make the typical Cretan dishes of skioufihta, an egg-less pasta, and dakos, basically a Cretan bruschetta with ungodly amounts of olive oil. I may be over reaching here but I feel like the cooking instructor was impressed with my pasta rolling skills. I take such things very seriously. We also discovered a new cheese which has changed my life – fresh mizithra. In the US we only have aged mizithra (which Cretans call anthotiro), but in Crete they have a creamy, soft, slightly sweet mizithra that you can eat with honey or fruit, and it is heavenly. Sadly, this cheese pretty much only exists on Crete so we had to eat enough in two weeks to last a lifetime (which I nearly succeeded at).

The still functioning olive oil press at the farm.

Making sun-dried tomatoes, the real way.

A raki distillery. That stuff is scary.

Rolling pasta is serious business.

My handiwork (fine, Jeff helped a bit).

The final step for our delicious lunch.

Sweet fresh mizithra!!!! With honey and a bit of cinnamon it’s the best thing ever.

The store at the olive oil farm sold so many treats. I need to do grocery shopping trips here in the future.

We also made a visit to Rethymnon, a Venetian walled city that we had stayed in during our last visit. Ostensibly we made the trip to show the Rethymnon to my sister Callie and her friend Sabah, but really it was just an excuse for a pilgrimage to a restaurant called Prima Plora. Several years ago we had an immensely memorable meal at Prima Plora and both Jeff and I were hell-bend on recreating it. This type of nostalgic food pilgrimage is an almost certain recipe for disappointment, but we were delighted to find that Prima Plora is just as exquisite as we remember. So, so good!!!

Me, Sabah, and Callie at Prima Plora.

Jeff and I reliving our previous moment at Prima Plora. Can you tell I’m thrilled?

The Palace of Knossos

Since this was our second trip to Crete, we decided it was time to finally see the biggest (non-beach) tourist attraction in Crete – the Palace of Knossos. Built between 1700 ad 1400 BC, the palace was the main cultural and religious center for Minoan Crete. Legend has it that Knossos was the home of the mythical King Minos, and the site of the labyrinth built to contain the Minotaur. This is a lot of myth for any archeological site to stand up to, but I have to say honestly that the Palace of Knossos sucked. Big time. The entrance fee was expensive (even with an ill-gotten student discount) and the site was just plain weird. There was pretty much no description of the Minoan culture or functional relevance of the palace, and the frescos have been fancifully restored, to put it politely. I’ve since read a bit about the site’s archeologist, Sir Arthur Evans, and his 1900 ‘restoration’ of the temple has been described as “archaeological delinquency”. I agree. It was bad.

Creative liberties were taken….

Minoan mosaics ala amateur archeologists.

Some odd walls build as part of the reconstruction.

A view over the Palace of Knossos.

Various store rooms at the Palace of Knossos.

Last hurrah for Apostoli

Every few nights our Airbnb hosts Manolis and Nopi would come around and tell us about a festival in a nearby village with food and musical performances. This, on paper, sounds awesome, until you find out that said festivals begin at 10:00 or 10:30 PM and most people stay until 2:00 AM. How Greek farmers can survive on such a schedule is one of the greatest mysteries of our travels. We made it to exactly one such festival (after a disco nap) in the nearby village of Kastamonitsa. There was free food, drink, and the place was packed since the performer was a famous lyra player in in Crete. Amazingly it wasn’t just young people at these late-night festivals but whole families – babies, kids, super old people – who all stayed out until the wee hours of the morning. After putting in a good effort, Jeff and I finally headed home at 11:30. Manolis stayed until 2:00 AM. Wow.

Some dancing in Kastamonitsa’s square.

People from all the surrounding villages gathered.

Amazing (free) sweets!!!!

The food operation here was seriously impressive. These guys churned out so much food, and it was excellent.

The square full of people awaiting the main act.

Us at 11:30 PM. I’m exhausted!!!!

After a thoroughly delightful stay in rural Crete, we headed to our next destination – the town of Ierapetra on Crete’s southern coast on the Libyan Sea.

The train ride to from Athens to Thessaloniki was annoyingly long and hot, and it felt like we were regressing to Eastern Europe from whence we just came. Thessaloniki is very near the border with Bulgaria, and it feels like it. Prior to 1912 and the subsequent ‘population exchange’ between Greece and Turkey (which you can all read about here), Thessaloniki was a major Ottoman city with a mixed population of Greeks, Bulgarians, and Turks. It was also home to Europe’s largest Jewish population and at one time was proposed to become a kind of proto-Israel. Sadly, WWII happened before these plans could be realized and Thessaloniki was left with a legacy of identity confusion, if not quite crisis.

To add to the confused essence of Thessaloniki, there was a massive fire in 1917 which was blamed on a Frenchman cooking an aubergine (as they do). The whole city was destroyed and rebuilt in a ‘non-oriental’ style. The streets are wide, the buildings are low, and there is minimal evidence left of the city’s deep Ottoman heritage. It is a very pleasant small city, but the appearance and atmosphere of Thessaloniki doesn’t captivate like Athens and Istanbul. That said, because it’s such a small city with relatively few tourists people are very friendly and everything is quite manageable.

A highlight of our time in Thessaloniki was a food tour that we did with the bombastic and entertaining guide Despina and an incredibly dull couple from Ireland. In addition to walking food tours, Despina and her business partner teach cooking classes in their fabulous ‘food laboratory’ and clearly have a passion for the past and present culinary landscape of northern Greece. Before we embarked on our food-walk Despina made us traditional Greek coffee and read Jeff’s fortune in the sludge. Evidently it was… good. We think.

Jeff’s coffee sludge fortune was good. Despina didn’t elaborate on the details.

Callie and I loving some super brisk Greek coffee.

Snacks and coffee at the food lab.

We walked through Thessaloniki’s traditional markets and scarfed down crunchy sesame bread, different types of feta, gruyere, a weird camel meat salami, tons of olives, and of course, mezze and ouzo. We visited a large produce market and the price-to-quality ratio was impressive – and maddening. I bought produce for like 3 meals for under 2 € – why isn’t this possible at home?!? Some of the markets were run down and in disrepair, but we saw young hipster types beginning to move in and reuse the space. There was a small batch coffee roaster that seemed to be the first pioneer of this new wave, and we spent some time chatting with the owner about his process. It was nice to see the beginnings of a resurgence and hopefully the markets of Thessaloniki make a comeback.

Fabulous and heart-breakingly cheap produce. It’s not fair.

So meat, if you care.

There was quite the seafood selection. Jeff loved it, and so did the street kitties.

A collection of old-style ‘spoon sweets’, preserved fruits to eat on yogurt or alone as a desert.

The coffee roasting operation in one of Thessaloniki’s soon-to-gentrify markets.

The green coffee beans awaiting roasting.

One of the most historically significant sites in Thessaloniki is also the least advertised. The founder of modern day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was born in the city in 1881 in a small home that is still standing. Naturally, because the Greeks and Turks are BFFs everyone is really happy about this arrangement and there is no animosity whatsoever. In fact, the Turks built their embassy around Atatürk’s house, ya know, just to make sure it stays safe. (side-bar: this was the second time on this trip that we inadvertently set foot on Turkish soil; our visit to TRNC was the first).

The house and museum are small but it is interesting to learn about the life of Atatürk and reflect on what a different place the world is because of his life. In the garden of the house is a pomegranate tree planted by Atatürk’s dad, which makes you realize the relative recentness of the modern world as we know it. The museum has some fabulous photos of old Salonika (Ottoman Thessaloniki). The photos show a city dotted with the domes of many bathhouses and the minarets of many mosques, none of which survive today. Damn that careless Frenchman and his aubergine!

The unassuming exterior of Atatürk’s birthplace.

The inner courtyard of the house leads to a small museum.

This is the pomegranate tree planted by Atatürk’s father.

The Turkish embassy, and our second inadvertent Turkish excursion.

We also spent some time exploring some of the cool old buildings of Thessaloniki that managed to survived the fire. We saw the Agios Dimitrius church with its spooky crypt, the surprisingly cool Rotunda church, and the old Byzantine era-prison the White Tower.

The oddly captivating Rotunda. Built in the 300s AD it is one of the oldest buildings in Thessaloniki.

The entrance to the main dome at the Rotunda. I love the Christian imagery and the Ottoman/Arabic script.

The central hall. It was oddly beautiful.

The Byzantine ‘White Tower’ was a prison and now houses a great history museum.

The old Byzantine walls around upper-Thessaloniki.

A view out to the sea.

New apartment blocks facing the ruins of an ancient Greek market. Pretty cool.

Overall, Thessaloniki was a pleasant, quiet respite from the crowds of Athens. The city won’t awe tourists but since we had time it was nice to see a different slice of Greek life. After 4 quiet days, we headed to the magical island of Crete!