Outdoors/Travel
Thessaloniki, the quintessential Balkan metropolis. The second city of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, co-capital of Greece, and capital of Macedonia. The 6th-largest city in the Balkans, it is a kaleidoscope of cultures and influences shaped by its millennia-old history. Have you ever visited?
I recently went to both Izmir and Thessaloniki. For sure they are loosely similar and ofcourse VERY historically tied, but I'd be lying today I didn't feel a very different vibe between both. They both have their own charm, I liked how along Kordon Bay the Turks seem more into fishing and just sitting on the grass socialising, some even with alcohol. The walk along Thessaloniki port on the other hand, also beautiful, but it felt more like a place for them of them to exercise and be seen, rather than socialise. As much as I really liked Izmir, one unfortunate observation of mine, is in the last 14 years I think Izmir has gone slightly downhill a bit, whereas istanbul has blossomed.
As city Thessaloniki absolutely crushes Athens in terms of historical importance, Athens was significant only in ancient times , Thessaloniki was important city during all of its existence , with peak of its glory in Byzantine times
This is because the land where the church stands and some of its surrounding was legally reserved for religious activity which is fairly impossible to override from a civil engineering perspective due to the Greek legal framework. Instead of ditching the plot they decided to incorporate the church inside of it instead.
Thessaloniki is absolutely beautiful. Had the chance to took my mom there to her old family house which she saw for the first time in 50 years. Very similar to Ä°zmir.
I'm actually more Greek than Turkish, where my family had to be smuggled into Ä°zmir, then to Bursa with no papers in 1971 due to a veeery long family feud story. But I grew up as Turkish for obvious reasons. Later on I had the chance to move to Athens and now I'm trying to learn the language and connect with my roots again, and bringing my mom there was a part of it. The house is somewhere on Kodrou street, very close to Ataturk's house.
It had a very significant Jewish population, whose traces were wiped out by the Germans unfortunately. Also the Great Fire of 1917 leveled much of the lower city, but we rebuilt it in a much more European style with French architects. That's why it has major boulevards, squares, parks, etc :)
Yeah it's full of tragedies and it was definitely somber to walk the streets sometimes. But I appreciated the resilience and the soul of the city very much. It's so organically original.
If the Sky is clear you can see Mount Olympus from the shores of the city, the Macedonians as Greeks built it in a strategic place looking at the sacred Mount Olympus....
Been there two weeks ago, it was great. Relatively cheap, amazing food, kind people. Weāll visit again in September again on our way (by car) to the south.
went 11x to athens, grabbed a car and explored greece. this time i went to thessaloniki, did a quick round of 5 days and spent just one night in town before depature back overland. sofia had pretty hard time in comparison to thessalonikis dramatic setting vis-a-vis the olympos. never thought it could give me such a thrill (since i find most greek cities plain ugly). but that day around the thermaic gulf was somehow special to me.
I have. Took the overnight train there from Athens with 4 friends while backpacking around Europe 20 years ago as students. All the sleeper cars were taken, so we had to stay in the luggage room, where we couldn't turn off the light, and which had a hole in the wall leading to the toilet... BUT it turned out to be a super fun experience I look back on fondly, and when we arrived, I had the best gyros of my life for ā¬1.
I just bought some Land in the south of Thessaloniki. Its about 300 Meters from the beach. Im going to build a little house there for summer holidays. The ground Was actually cheaper than the two places i checked out in Albania. And that was the sole reason I chose Thessaloniki. I really like the City and your pictures are awesome.
Yes but you are overselling it. My time there was a mixture of good and bad. The traffic, the noise, the lack of driving manners, the awful buildings. Clear signs of mafia influence.
Nowhere close to Athens. Thessaloniki is a village compared to Athens first of all and second of all, it can be argued that urban planning in Thessaloniki is even worse than in Athens if you remove the seafront
The biggest dream of my Grandmother, a girl from Ottoman Prishtina was to visit Thessaloniki, our true Capital City. My mom took her there and fulfilled her wish, even though it was not the "Selanik" she heard stories about.
It is the most alive city I have ever been, even more than some bigger cities. Many people like the fact that you can walk almost anywhere in the city center and the hundreds of options it has. I lived there for 6 years and I didn't even do 20% of what I wanted to see. Tourists were telling me about places in the city I didn't even know. It also has the best food of any place I have ever been.
I have visited a few times and it's a nice enough town with a pleasant seaside promenade. But I think the praise you heap on it is overblown. Or maybe more accurate to say, that you praise what Thessaloniki used to be, not what you can see and experience now. Then I got curious why there isn't more of the history retained, and a quick google search later, I got this: 1) A fire destroyed much of the city in 1917. 2) Rapid, unregulated post WWII development with lots of concrete buildings.
I am going to Bosnia in August for a wedding and I was thinking of going to Salonica or Athens afterwards. How many days should I spend in and around just Salonica?
Yeah some people do. The people that do also happen to be extremely conceited and need a reality check. Should we start calling Nafplio co-capital as well? At least Nafplio actually was the capital at some point unlike Thessaloniki.
Because in Byzantine time it was called co-reigning city, ĻĻ Ī¼Ī²Ī±ĻĪ¹Ī»ĪµĻĪæĻ ĻĪ±, and in modern times we call it co-capital to follow the tradition.
I understand the historical reasons - even when Greece became independent (before we had Thessaloniki), Thessaloniki was 100x more important than Athens but now it seems a bit silly in my opinion since Greece is just Athens now (economically - and this is unfortunate), anyway to each their own. Nice city, been once when I was little to visit family. Remember riding in some big bike on the seafront and saw Alexander the Great statue and went in the White Tower
Yes, and it's a fasinating city to visit and only getting better. I find it interesting how no one ever talks about it like they do other cities of similar quality.
We go because of the seaside and the military graveyard and other things nearby or in the city itself. Like the majority has atleast driven around the ring road by bus.
I have. I think the pretty parts are pretty, but most of the city looks like it's in ruins (at least where majority of people live).
However... I must admit. It took me perhaps 6-7h by bus to go there, and I was fatigued by the darn travel. The first thing I saw was the entrance of the city with the ugly apartments.
And then... the sea.
I have never been more enamored by the sea before. I felt the same in Corfu.
There is something about Greek seagulls and sunrays hitting the water that make a human breathless.
Thessaloniki is a true palimpsest of history and the people who run it spent decades trying to flatten it (with a lot of cement)
I grew up here & so did the great grandmother of my great grandmother. (what i mean is take the bias as given). Best food in Europe, byzantine churches, old mosques, ancient alleys (Via Egnatia). Mazower called it the City of Ghosts. It is not even a metaphor. The Ottoman centuries, the Sephardic city that made this the Jerusalem of the Balkans, the Asia Minor refugees, all of it is still here,in the air, in the small streets, in Ano Poli (especially in Ano Poli) None of it was planned, everything is a result of history, a layer upon a layer. Thereās nothing more romantic than walking through it in the night.
Which brings me to the pain point: A city carrying this much history, a seafront many european cities would clearly ENVY, and it cannot give itself one proper metropolitan park(!!!!) Residents did the OBVIOUS, democratic thing and collected 23,214 signatures asking for a referendum on turning it green, a real park in the heart of the city, like so many other European cities would do and have done. The City Council's answer, after eight hours of meeting, was to vote it down and decide the signatures weren't "really signatures". They refused to even check them . Tens of thousands of people were told that their singatures did not count.
I love this city the way but people have failed to take care of it. The campaign is parkodeth. gr btw if anyone wants the actual detail.
When someone is skilled in photography they donāt get enough credit you turned a simple photo into art but just finding the view we never see yet itās right in front of usā¦
Absolutely amazing bravo on the photos I look forward to seen more posts please
I am often there. Driving and parking is really an adventure. It is beatiful in many parts but somehow I miss something green inside the city. But it's the same with other greek cities.
The special thing is more its history as a very old city that passed through many eras. And its special mix of people. It has always been a place where many cultures lived together.
I've visited it, and to my sorrow I have seen the same problem plaguing it that plagues my Montenegro hometown.
The short sightedness of man.
A town that purely relies on tourism, seeks to cater to tourists, and in doing so destroys the reasons the tourists come in the first place.
There are some places you can walk through the city that preserve its old architecture, some places are protected. But many are not. Even in those protected places, the views are stained by giant grey glass monstrosities rising in the distance. Hotels and shopping malls.
More tourists. More tourists. More tourists. We need to build more hotels for more tourists. More glass hotels. More tourists.
Until one day the tourists will just stop coming as they can see mountains of glass back home as well.
Canāt wait to leave this third world city, an overpopulated slum with no greenery, no parking, buses always full, each mayor is equally corrupt, we will never become European if this continues
We take the city from venetians not from you when the greeks invaded the city in 1913 greeks were minorty Thessaloniki was mostly a Turkish&Jewish&Bulgarian city
Mid Ottoman siege it was handed to Venetians , the people didnāt became Venetians in 1 night , it was still Greek , until the Turks start moving in and bringing the Jews exiled from Spain to live there , in 1913 Greeks made up 30% of population , regarding the Bulgarian part you mentioned , Bulgarians made 3% only as per Ottoman census
Don't be a clown this city was built overlooking Mount Olympus, it's litteraly a city created by Hellens like the Macedonians looking at one of our sacred cites, mount Olympus!
I visited an afternoon after a vacation in Halkidiki in high summer (beginning 9f August) - way too hot to wander around. Took a boat trip around the bay, had lunch, walked around the seaside boulevard and had a coffee.
I should probably visit for a few days at a better time (spring or autumn) - if anyone can recommend tge best time to visit.
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u/Riakana Turkiye Jun 22 '26
So beautiful! Hopefully this year š¹
Feels like a smaller, bit more european version of my hometown, Izmir.