Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki is the better food city in Greece, and that is not a hedge. Greek visitors come from Athens specifically to eat. The reason is partly history (a Sephardic, Pontic, and Asia Minor refugee population layered over a Macedonian Greek base) and partly habit: the city's tavernas, mezedopoleia, and bakeries have stayed family-run, and prices remain noticeably lower than the southern capital. Start with bougatsa for breakfast at Bantis or Hatzis. End with a long mezedopoleion dinner in Ladadika or near the Modiano market.
The city was founded in 315 BC by the Macedonian general Cassander and named for his wife Thessalonike, half-sister of Alexander the Great. Under the Byzantines it grew into the empire's second city after Constantinople. Fifteen of the surviving churches from that period are inscribed by UNESCO as a single property and are scattered through the modern grid. Hagia Sophia and Agios Demetrios are the two large set-pieces; the Rotunda, originally a Roman mausoleum that became successively a church, a mosque, and a church again, has its early Christian mosaics intact in the dome.
The Sephardic Jewish community, expelled from Spain in 1492, settled in Thessaloniki and made it the largest Sephardic city in the world by the early twentieth century. Half the population spoke Ladino. The community was destroyed in 1943: ninety-six percent of the city's Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. The Jewish Museum on Agiou Mina tells the story. The redeveloped Nea Paralia, the long waterfront promenade running from the White Tower south to the concert hall, is the everyday walk.
Thessaloniki has a real winter; come late September through November, or in April and May, when the city is at its temperate best. Three nights minimum, ideally with a day-trip to Pella (Alexander's birthplace) and the royal Macedonian tombs at Vergina, where the gold larnax of Philip II is the single most consequential object in the museum.
House Notes
Arrival
Hellenic Train's Athens–Thessaloniki Intercity takes 5 hours 15 minutes under the current reduced schedule — Intercity 50 from Athens at 06:58 and 56 at 17:58, returning 05:55 and 16:49. Track works will eventually return the time to about 3 hours 55 minutes; until then, an air transfer is the better answer.
The address
Electra Palace Thessaloniki anchors the waterfront end of Aristotelous Square. The Orizontes restaurant on the roof carries the Thermaikos Gulf and Mount Olympus across the bay. The hotel's art programme is curated in partnership with MOMus, the city's modern art house, and the lobby is the meeting point for most arrivals.
The kitchens
Mourga, the open-kitchen seafood room of chef Giannis Loukakis at Christopoulou 12, prints the menu on cardboard each morning according to the day's fishermen and the markets. Crayfish with goat-garlic butter, grilled cuttlefish with fava beans. The covers are limited; book a week ahead, longer in summer.
Gerovassiliou
Domaine Gerovassiliou, in Epanomi a short drive south-east of the city, was founded in 1981 by Vangelis Gerovassiliou — the producer who, with Aristotle University viticulturist Vassilis Logothetis, rescued the Malagousia grape from extinction. The wine museum holds more than 2,600 corkscrews. Open Doors falls on 5 May each year.
The crypt
Beneath Agios Demetrios, the crypt holds the Roman bath where Demetrios was imprisoned and martyred in 303. The chamber surfaced after the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, which gutted the basilica; the church was reconsecrated in 1949. Six surviving mosaic panels in the upper church date to the period before the Iconoclasm of 730. UNESCO inscribed it in 1988.
Ano Poli
The Heptapyrgion, the Byzantine-Ottoman fortress at the crown of Ano Poli, held political prisoners through the Metaxas regime, the Axis occupation, and the Junta until the prison closed in 1989. Systematic restoration began in 1990 under Aristotle University and Cornell. The walls return south through the upper-town lanes; climb against the day, in the morning.
Modiano
The Modiano Market, designed in the early twentieth century by Sephardic engineer Eli Modiano, reopened in December 2022 after a ten-million-euro restoration by the Fais Group. The renovated hall holds 75 shops, stalls, and eateries under the original ironwork; the Saturday morning is the right shape, before the Athenian visitors arrive.
The synagogue
The Monastirioton Synagogue, built between 1925 and 1927 by Jewish families displaced from Monastir in the Balkan Wars, is the only one of the city's pre-war synagogues that survived — the Red Cross requisitioned it as a warehouse through the German occupation. Services are held on the High Holy Days; a 2016 restoration by Elias Messinas returned it to ceremonial use.
The White Tower
The cylindrical Ottoman tower at the foot of the waterfront was raised in the fifteenth century and served for centuries as a prison so grim it was called the Tower of Blood. A spiral ramp climbs the floors, which now hold the Museum of Byzantine Culture’s permanent exhibition on the city — its founding in 316 BC to the present, told level by level. The interior is tight; go early, before the promenade fills.
Athos
Mount Athos admits male visitors only, and the Diamonitirion permit issues from the Pilgrim's Bureau at 109 Egnatia Street. The daily quota is 120 — 110 Orthodox and 10 non-Orthodox. Apply three to six months ahead; collect the permit in person at Ouranoupoli on the morning of entry.