Thessalonikouzo

(Cet article est écrit en anglais car nous avons passé le week-end avec des espagnols et, ne parlant pas espagnol, … Bref t’as compris !)

*alarm ringing*

Here we go, it’s 7.30 am during the cultural day in Bulgaria so it’s off for everyone and we come up with the best team (9 superheroes from Spain and France) at the airport to rent a van and run away to Thessaloniki, Greece!

Of course, we are in Bulgaria so we have to wait an hour for the car, which appears to be a 9-seaters van. Julien, as a real director of summer camp for children, drives for three hours until we reach our final destination : Thessaloniki !

Kalimera malaka!

We park the van in a little street, praying to see it back in 3 days and we start to ride the city. Actually, not that much because we stop already at a bar to drink our first ouzo (the first of a long series!). Really tasty, a subtle anise taste, a bit sweet … Amazing!

Then we walk to the beach and we visit the white tower, which was at the beginning, part of the fortifications built by … Constantine the Great, the same dude who developed our beloved Serdika, what a guy!

Same as for Bulgaria, the city was, under the ottoman empire, one of the most important harbour of the empire and very cosmopolitan. It’s only in 1912 and the first balkanique war that the city became part of Greece and the mosques were turned into orthodox churches again.

But enough movements for today, we are following the greek art of living (actually we are travelling with the nice RRRRRRRResus who lived for 3 years in Greece so we are part of the family): we sit in a restaurant ordering ouzo, ouzo and ouzo as well and also grilled feta, tzatziki and some little grilled fishes… This is amazing! Something to notice, the greeks are super friendly and they bring free dessert at the end of each meal: at the beginning, this is nice but after 3 or 4 restaurants, when the waiter bring 500g of ice cream per person (no joke dude!), it appears to be quite ambitious for our stomachs. At night, we meet our beloved Paulo Giraldo (the marathon runner for those who were following the news) and his babymama who were visiting the city as well. After some beers, some ouzo (again) and some tsipouro, we decide to go to bed to walk the next day (but don’t worry, not too much, we are with spanish guys who got almost the same lifestyle as the greeks, SIESTA time hermano!).

So, the next day I meet the two lovers to visit the top of the city (always good to have an overview) and we enter into nice little churches which offer a beautiful landscape! We get lost into the old town and even if it only 3 hours away from Sofia, the atmosphere is much more mediterranean, crazy to see the difference!

Then, we meet the dream team to eat nice dishes (greek salad, greek giros, ...) and we drink ouzo, some resina (very typical from Greece) and some ouzo! Everything is really tasty and it feels good to see waiters and people smiling contrary to the bulgarian (a bit cliché, but still…). We spend the afternoon walking and getting lost in the little streets, in a graveyard and in some little streets again. The weather is perfect, it’s hot, in Greece, with good friends, what else?

For the dinner, after several negotiations, we end up in the worst restaurant of the city to eat a musaka which appears to be … Ok, it was ok. The wine was good tho so the musaka turned out to be quite tasty!

We spend the night relating some interesting (?) stories while drinking greek beers and greek ouzo… You need to be there to understand dude!

The next morning, I decide to go to the the arch of Galerius and to see the Rotunda. The Rotunda is amazing! It was first a temple dedicated to Zeus, then it became a church, then a mosque and finally a church. We still can see the minaret and some paintings inside remain but, to me, the most impressive is the architecture of the ceiling: it is huge without any pillars and we can wonder how such architecture is sustainable!

We finally get back in the car to go to the beach! As we woke up too late we don’t have the time to go to the beautiful one so we swim in a water that might be the most polluted one of the whole country… Nevermind, a last greek salad and gyros (no ouzo this time, the cure is finally over) and we go back to Sofia with our van!

Thessaloniki is peaceful city and the greek living style is perfect for a little break of three days, or maybe it’s this dream team which made the trip amazing?

Nice memories in mind! Hope you like the reading malaka!