Thessaloniki isn't exactly a city you're likely to visit for fun. Most people who go there do so because it is a convenient stopping off point for visiting places in northern Greece and has the second major airport in Greece. As such it seems somewhat unfair to criticize it for being a grungy mess because it isn't supposed to be anything else. Basically Thessaloniki is Athens without the Parthenon.
This is a mosque strangely enough. It looks like a fairly typical Orthodox church but it's a Muslim place of worship. It's also a fairly typical look at a Thessalonikan street. It's filthy and it smells and looks like one of those streets you avoid when going into the city.
Actually these are the nice streets. The bad ones are narrow little one way things where cars park jutting out into the middle of the road and forcing you to slow down. Not that the locals slow down of course. When driving through the city on her way to get us after picking up the car Diana managed to bash the passenger-side mirror. When she called up the rental place to report it they told her not to worry about it if nobody noticed. An instructive look at the way Greece operates.
One of Thessaloniki's main parks. This was probably a nice place but we skipped it in order to avoid protesters. The protests never turned into riots while we were here but having made it out of Athens one step ahead of the riots we weren't about to take any chances.
Just opposite the park you come into the nice part of Thessaloniki.
There were a swarm of protesters when we visited. This is 2011 so they were in the middle of their Debt Crisis. The government was issuing the austerity measures demanded by the EU and cutting jobs even though unemployment was at 14% already. The whole thing is a mess and I don't have a clue how they're going to fix it. The basic problem is that nobody pays their taxes as a matter of pride and because the government is hopelessly corrupt, which means that the government has to borrow money in order to fund the programs that the people want (but don't want to pay for). Like Socialized Health Care. Greece has it and yet there were people in all the cities lying on the streets begging for cash because the health care system threw them out. If you don't bribe the hospital staff to let you stay they kick you out on the street.
Guessing game: How many of these buildings are restaurants? Answer: None. These are all bars. There are no restaurants on the seafront of Thessaloniki. There must be restaurants somewhere but they're not here. Everyone at these tables is sitting here enjoying booze or snacks. And there are hundreds of these along the waterfront.
The seafront is actually pretty nice, and we came here at sunset so it was extra special. If I ever end up stuck in Thessaloniki again I'm definitely coming here. There's some kind of castle in the corner over there that we never got to see.
Some kind of castle. This is the main area where people hang out to relax.
These are the old city walls of Thessaloniki, left over from Byzantine times. You'll find them scattered throughout the city. This one was behind the courthouse.
40°38'11.97"N, 22°56'41.84"E
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