Riots and Roses: Valentine’s Weekend in Greece!

Since Valentine’s Day fell on a Tuesday this year, we decided to have a little adventure the weekend before.  We found inexpensive tickets to Thessaloniki, Greece and the Friday before Valentine’s Day (after a very sweet delivery of roses to our flat) off we went!

Leaving snowy England

We landed on Thessaloniki and took a taxi into the city.  From a distance it looked like what I expected of Greece, buildings on a gently sloping hillside around a bay.  But up close, was a different story.  Many of the buildings resembled communist blocks and there was graffiti everywhere, making it look more like Hanoi, Vietnam than my expectations of a Grecian paradise.  (Too much Mama Mia, I guess).  I have heard that the islands are very different…and I would still like to check those out!

Eating our way through Thessaloniki

Our first night, we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant on the main pier and then headed to bed.  The next day we explored the city, went to a coffee shop, the first place I’ve ever been where they didn’t have an English menu.  Fortunately “espresso” translates.”  Then we had a lovely evening hopping from bar to bar and ended up at Malt and Jazz, a music venue where they were playing Greek top 40 hits.  It was awesome!

The next day was our “touristy” day.  We saw a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church, paid a visit to the Turkish Embassy which was Ataturk’s birthplace and childhood home, saw some Roman ruins, explored the White Tower, and ended with a delicious Greek meal.

In front of the Roman Agora

We had some moussaka and some delicious feta cheese.  The people in Greece were so friendly–they gave us free dessert a couple of places we went!  After lunch, we went back to our hotel for a nap.  When we got up and went out, our real adventure began…

If you have been following the news lately, you’ll know that Greece has been facing some austerity measures that are quite controversial locally.  We happened to be there over the weekend of the vote when things got crazy.  Fortunately, most of the craziness was in Athens.  The images people saw on the news of burning buildings and tear gas were of Athens, not where we were.  Let me preface this part of the story by saying:  WE WERE PERFECTLY SAFE!!!

Riot Police taking care of business

Although the majority of the protesting was in Athens, Thessaloniki did have a demonstration involving more than 20,000 people.  As we were heading to dinner, we happened upon the march, so we decided to observe.  For the most part, everyone was peaceful.  As the march continued though, we could hear people beating windows and signs with sticks and their fists.  We were situated on a corner where the march was turning.  There was a suit shop on the corner that suffered several broken windows and a bank that suffered a broken sign and a few broken windows.

Graffiti on the suit shop...

As the march proceeded to a small square, things got a little ugly.  People began shooting fireworks into buildings, setting dumpsters on fire, and throwing things are the riot police.  By this point, we were a couple of blocks from the demonstration, but we could see it as it was slightly uphill.  There were about 15 riot police officers between us and what was going on.  We were amongst several observers, mostly Greek, all watching this chaos with a look of dismay and some of disgust.  Eventually, as things escalated, the police shot tear gas into the crowd to get things to calm down.  As you can imagine, this agitated the protesters and they continued to throw things at the police.

Our view from behind the police

Eventually, however, things died down.  John and I decided to take a walk down a side street, where many other people were walking to get home, and were overwhelmed by tear gas.  It had blown over from the protest site.  Let me tell you, I can see why this is used as a crowd control tool.  Our eyes teared up, throats and noses started burning.  It was awful–and that was a diluted version.  Looking back, we laugh at our “tear gas Valentine’s Day.”

Delicious food!

After this episode, we hightailed it to a restaurant in an old olive oil warehouse and had a delicious dinner of feta cheese, salad, chicken skewers, and some delicious Greek dessert.  The waiter was apologizing profusely for the protests and told us not to be afraid, Greece wasn’t mad at us.  Haha.  He also asked us what we liked about Greece to which we replied: the food and the friendly people.  He then mocked us saying “haha–so friendly” and acted out the throwing of a grenade.  Such a hilarious guy.  After dinner, we went back to the hotel where we watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”  That just seemed like the right thing to do.

Really excited about that Greek coffee...

The next morning, we went out for some Greek coffee, lunch, and eventually made our way back to the airport for our flight home to London.  And thus ends our adventure to Thessaloniki filled with wonderful food, friendly people, and history in the making!

Thanks for reading!  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!  Cheers!