Northern Greece

Last weekend I joined around 40 of my classmates on an optional field trip to Northern Greece. Over the course of three days, we would clock over 1000miles on the odometer. We started out early Friday morning and drove up to Thermopylae, the site of the the famous Spartan battle against the Persians depicted in 300. The pass is no longer as narrow as it was over 2000 years ago- the coastline has been expanded about 4km. There wasn't too much to see there but I got a visual of what landscape the battle took place on. This is a photo of the monument set up there. Leonidas is the central figure with the shield. You can see the famous quote MOLON LABE "Come and get them (if you dare)."

The next stop we had was unplanned; the national road up to Thessaloniki was closed so we had to detour through Kalambaka. I had previously traveled to Kalambaka to see the monasteries of Meteora. This time we could not enter the monasteries, but we did have much better weather. With the fall foliage and the fantastic lighting the monasteries and rocks are absolutely stunning.

After dark we arrived in Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. We walked through the center of town and had a delicious dinner at a taverna- Northern Greece is known for its food.

The next day we went to Pella. We saw both the museum and the archaeological site. Pella was the capital of ancient Macedonia. This was the area from which Alexander the Great came from. There were some gorgeous mosaics on the floor of some of the buildings in Pella.

We followed Pella up with a stop at Vergina. A goat herder was once herding his goats across a hill when he suddenly fell down though the earth and on top of a giant tomb. As it turned out, there were a number of elaborate tombs buried under the hill. Archaeologists believe that these tombs belong to the Macedonian royal family. The Vergina museum displays these tombs and many artifacts found in them. There was this one really cool shield with beautiful ivory decoration that may have been Alexander's (how can they really tell?).

We then returned back to Thessaloniki for the evening. We walked around a bit more, but once again most of the shops were closed. I did get to try the chocolate covered tsoureki! Tsoureki is a delicious sweet bread, but in Thessaloniki (remember it is known for food) there is this shop that covers them with different glazes.

Sunday morning we got a tour of Thessaloniki by the professors accompanying us on the trip. We saw Agios Demetrios, the church of the patron saint of the city. Although I was a little uncomfortable, it was really cool to see this beautiful church during services.

We also saw the Acheiropiitos church, the rotunda (which has beautiful mosaics), the Gallerius Arch, the palace, and the White Tower. The White Tower is a symbol of Thessaloniki and used to be a prison. One of the inmates painted it white in exchange for his freedom. The tower has stairs spiraling around the inside edge of the tower leading up to a beautiful view of the sea.

Rotunda mosaic:

View from the White Tower:

The bus ride back to Athens was long. And while I enjoyed watching both 300 and the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on the bus, I wish the ride had been a bit shorter. If Thessaloniki was a bit closer, I definitely would go back for some more of their food.