Thessaloniki
Amy and I started our trip by flying from Charlotte to Munich to Thessaloniki.
The City of Philip II and Alexander
Thessaloniki is a Macedonian city. The royal capital of Macedonia, in the 4th Century BCE was Pella, but Macedonia needed a large port city, especially once Phillip II started making conquering cities and valuable resources, especially gold, in Thrace (at the top of the Aegean).
The city is named after “Thessaloniki”, Philip’s first daughter, and Alexander the Great’s half-sister.
Later, Thessaloniki married Cassander, the son of Philip’s right-hand-man Antipater.
The city has gone by many names over the years, as Greek evolved, and as it was ruled by the Ottomans, Venetians, Ottomans again, and finally returned to Greek rule in the 1800s: Thessaloniki, Thessalonica, Saloniki, Salonika, Salonica. Just like Istanbul (Byzantium, Constantinople, Stampoli, Istanbul) right across the water. Many names = long history (and lots of upheavals).
We spent most of our two days in Thessaloniki trying to get our luggage, so we didn’t do much. But…
You can tell a lot about how people regard their historical figures by the statues they erect. There are statues of both Philip II and Alexander the Great near the center of town. Philips’ shows him standing stiffly, with his wounded missing eye. Tourists on the boardwalk can see it only by crossing a huge, scary intersection into a small park. Alexander’s is a massive equestrian statue, flanked by Macedonian sarissa and surrounded by floodlights, right on the waterside boardwalk. I wonder whom Thessaloniki reveres more?
Tips
· Munich is the only European airport I am willing to use as a transfer. I will never go to Heathrow again.
· Thessaloniki is a much easier city to walk around in than Athens. Of course, Athens has certain advantages, too.
Peripatos: Travels with Amy and Chris Blackwell © 2024 by Amy G. Hackney Blackwell & Christopher W. Blackwell is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.