Thessaloniki

When King Cassander of Macedonia founded the city in 315 BC, he named it after his wife Thessalonike, Alexander the Great’s half-sister, whose name in turn derived from the Macedons’ decisive victory (nike) over the Thessalians. It soon became the region’s cultural and trading centre, issuing its own coins, and when Rome conquered Macedonia in 146 BC, the city (under the name Salonica) became the natural and immediate choice of capital. Its fortunes and significance were boosted by the building of the Via Egnatia, the great road linking Rome (via Brindisi) with Byzantium and the East.

Christianity had slow beginnings in the city. St Paul visited twice, and on the second occasion, in 56 AD, he stayed long enough to found a church, later writing the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, his congregation there. It was another three centuries, however, before the new religion took full root. Galerius, who acceded as eastern emperor upon Byzantium’s break with Rome, provided the city with virtually all its surviving late Roman monuments. The first resident Christian emperor was Theodosius (reigned 379–95), who after his conversion issued the Edict of Salonica, officially ending paganism.

Under Justinian’s rule (527–65) Salonica became the second city of Byzantium after Constantinople, which it remained – under constant pressure from Goths and Slavs – until its sacking by Saracens in 904. The storming and sacking continued under the Normans of Sicily (1185) and with the Fourth Crusade (1204), when the city became for a time capital of the Latin Kingdom of Salonica. It was, however, restored to the Byzantine Empire of Nicea in 1246, reaching a cultural “golden age” until Turkish conquest and occupation in 1430.

Thessaloníki was the premier Ottoman Balkan city when Athens was still a backwater. Its population was as varied as any in the region, with Greek Orthodox Christians in a distinct minority. Besides Ottoman Muslims, who called the city “Selanik”, there were Slavs (who still know it as “Solun”), Albanians, Armenians and, following the Iberian expulsions after 1492, the largest European Jewish community of the age.

The modern quality of Thessaloníki is due largely to a disastrous fire in 1917 which levelled most of the old plaster houses along a labyrinth of Ottoman lanes, including the entire Jewish quarter. The city was rebuilt, often in a special form of Art Deco style, over the following eight years on a grid plan prepared under the supervision of French architect Ernest Hébrard, with long central avenues running parallel to the seafront and cross-streets densely planted with trees. During World War II the city was occupied by the Nazis, who decimated the Jewish community. After the war more reconstruction was necessary to repair bomb damage, though this was interrupted in 1978 by a severe earthquake that damaged many older buildings.

Thessaloníki’s opulence has traditionally been epitomized by the locals’ sartorial elegance, but the boom of the 1990s is long gone and an increasing number of boarded-up shops indicate that Greece’s economic malaise has taken hold here. A permanent underclass lives in shantytowns near the port, consisting of Pontic or Black Sea Greeks, Albanians and eastern European refugees, as well as a growing community of Afghans and Africans.

Ottoman Thessaloníki

Despite years of neglect, the 1917 fire and the 1978 quake, Thessaloníki has quite a number of vestiges of Ottoman architecture to show, mostly within walking distance of Platía Dhikastiríon. At the eastern corner of the square itself stands the disused but well-preserved Bey Hammam or Parádhisos Baths (Mon–Fri 9am–9pm, Sat & Sun 8.30am–3pm; free), the oldest Turkish bathhouse in the city (1444) and in use until 1968. The doorway is surmounted by elaborate ornamentation, while inside art exhibitions – often paradoxically with Byzantine themes – are held from time to time.

To the south of Platía Dhikastiríon lies the main Turkish bazaar area, bounded roughly by Egnatía, Dhragoúmi, Ayías Sofías and Tsimiskí. Much the most interesting bit, and a quiet midtown oasis, is a grid of lanes between Ayías Sofías and Aristotélous, devoted to selling animals, crafts and cane furniture. Nearby Ottoman monuments include the six-domed Bezesténi or covered valuables market at the corner of Venizélou and Egnatía, now housing jewellery and other shops. Directly opposite, on the north side of Egnatía, rather more modest stores occupy a prominent mosque, the fifteenth-century purpose-built Hamza Bey Tzamí (most mosques in Ottoman Thessaloníki were converted churches), now looking decidedly ramshackle.

Well to the north of Platía Dhikastiríon, beyond Áyios Dhimítrios basilica, is the seventeenth-century Yeni Hammam, now a summer cinema and music venue serving basic food, and better known as the Aigli; the fifteenth-century Altaza Imaret, tucked away in a quiet square diagonally opposite, sports a handsome portico and multiple domes.

The Archeological Museum

The refurbished archeological museum is undoubtedly the city’s leading museum. Star billing goes to the marvellous Gold of Macedon exhibition in the south hall, which displays – and clearly labels in both English and Greek – many of the finds from the royal tombs of Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) and others at the ancient Macedonian capital of Aegae, in Vergina. They include startling amounts of gold and silver – masks, crowns, necklaces, earrings and bracelets – all of extraordinarily imaginative craftsmanship, both beautiful and practical, as well as pieces in ivory and bronze. Other highlights include the central gallery (opposite as you enter), which is devoted to rich grave finds from ancient Sindos, a few kilometres north of the modern city, while the left-hand wing is taken up by Hellenistic and Roman art, in particular some exquisite blown-glass birds, found in the tumuli or toúmbes which stud the plain around Thessaloníki.

Byzantine churches

Almost all the Byzantine churches in Thessaloníki are located in the central districts or on the slopes heading up towards the Upper Town. Under the Turks most of the buildings were converted for use as mosques, a process that obscured many of their original features and destroyed the majority of their frescoes and mosaics. Further damage came with the 1917 fire and, more recently, with the 1978 earthquake. Restoration seems a glacially slow process, meaning that many sanctuaries remain locked. Nevertheless, those below are all worth a visit and free to enter.

One of the most central is the eleventh-century Panayía Halkéon church (daily 7.30am–noon), a classic though rather unimaginative example of the “cross-in-square” form, nestling at the lush southwestern corner of Platía Dhikastiríon. Its interior contains fragmentary frescoes in the cupola and some fine icons.

Several blocks east, and tucked away just out of sight north of Egnatía, the restored, fifth-century, three-aisled basilica of Panayía Ahiropíitos (daily 7am–noon & 4.30–6.30pm) is the oldest in the city. It features arcades, monolithic columns and highly elaborate capitals – a popular development begun under Theodosius. Only the mosaics inside the arches survive, depicting birds, fruits and vegetation in a rich Alexandrian style.

Around Áyios Dhimítrios are several more churches, utterly different in feel. To the west along Ayíou Dhimitríou is the church of Dhódheka Apóstoli (daily 8.30am–noon & 4–6pm), built in the twelfth century with the bold Renaissance influence of Mystra. Its five domes rise in perfect symmetry above walls of fine brickwork, while inside are glorious fourteenth-century mosaics, among the last executed in the Byzantine empire. High up in the arches to the south, west and north of the dome respectively are a Nativity, an Entry into Jerusalem, a Resurrection and a Transfiguration.

A short climb up Ayías Sofías is Ósios Dhavíd (Mon–Sat 9am–noon & 4–6pm), a tiny fifth-century church on Odhós Timothéou. It doesn’t really fit into any architectural progression, since the Ottomans demolished much of the building when converting it to a mosque. However, it has arguably the finest mosaic in the city, depicting a clean-shaven Christ Emmanuel appearing in a vision, with the four Rivers of Paradise, replete with fish, flowing beneath and lapping the feet of the prophets Ezekiel and Habakkuk.

Farther east in Kástra, on Irodhótou, fourteenth-century Áyios Nikólaos Orfanós (Tues–Sun 8.30am–2.45pm) is a diminutive, much-altered basilica; the imaginative and well-preserved frescoes inside are the most accessible and expressive in the city. It also houses the unusual Áyion Mandílion, an image of Christ’s head superimposed on a legendary Turin-style veil sent to an ancient king of Anatolian Edessa. Around the apse is a wonderful Niptir (Christ Washing the Disciple’s Feet), in which the image top right of a man riding a horse is thought to be the painter himself.

The museum of Byzantine culture

The prize-winning Museum of Byzantine Culture, in a handsome brick structure just east of the Archeological Museum, does a fine job of displaying the early Christian tombs and graves excavated in the city, featuring rescued wall paintings depicting, among others, Susannah and the Elders, and a naked rower surrounded by sea creatures. Despite this and the faultless lighting and display techniques, most of the displays will appeal more to specialists than to lay visitors.

The Jews of Thessaloníki

In the early sixteenth century, after virtually all the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal, nearly half of the inhabitants of Thessaloníki, over 80,000 people, were Jewish. For them “Salonik” or “Salonicco” ranked as a “Mother of Israel” and the community dominated the city’s commercial, social and cultural life for some four hundred years, mostly tolerated by the Ottoman authorities but often resented by the Greeks. The first waves of Jewish emigration to Palestine, western Europe and the United States began after World War I. Numbers had dropped to fewer than 60,000 at the onset of World War II, during which all but a tiny fraction were deported from Platía Eleftherías to the concentration camps and immediate gassing. The vast Jewish cemeteries east of the city centre, among the world’s largest, were desecrated in 1944; to add insult to injury, the area was later covered over by the new university and expanded trade-fair grounds in 1948. Thessaloníki’s only surviving pre-Holocaust synagogue is the Monastiriótou at Syngroú 35, with an imposing, if austere, facade; it’s usually open for Friday-evening and Saturday-morning worship. At the very heart of the former Jewish district sprawls the Modhiáno, the still-functioning central meat, fish and produce market, named after the wealthy Jewish Modiano family which long owned it.

The White Tower

Dominating the seafront promenade, the White Tower (Lefkós Pýrgos) is the city’s graceful symbol. Originally known as the Lions’ Tower and the Fortress of Kalamariá, it formed a corner of the city’s Byzantine and Ottoman defences before most of the walls were demolished late in the nineteenth century. In 1890 a Jewish prisoner was given the task of whitewashing the tower, in exchange for his freedom, hence the new name, which stuck, even though it is now more of a buff colour. It was restored in 1985 for the city’s 2300th birthday celebrations and has since been converted into a moderately interesting historical museum.