[Thessaloniki] Day Trips

Categories greece
[Thessaloniki] Day Trips

During our stay in Thessaloniki, our friends took us on some pretty amazing day trips away from the city. The first was a three-hour drive to Meteora, which literally means “suspended in air” or “in the heavens above”. What it is: six monasteries built on natural sandstone rock pillars, and yes, it’s as amazing as it sounds. We arrived in the late afternoon and only had the time to quickly look through one of the monasteries, but it was already an fascinating experience. To properly explore this area, it’s better to arrive early during the day and perhaps even stay in the area (which was our original plan before it got thwarted by the referendum…)

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[Thessaloniki] The Highlights

Categories greece
[Thessaloniki] The Highlights

I’ve been posting photos of Athens and the islands, but our first stop in Greece was actually Thessaloniki. This city, albeit being the second largest in Greece, is not really hot on the tourist map, but we have some lovely local friends who planned out a nice itinerary for us – we eventually had to change our plans due to the Greek bailout referendum, but we had a wonderful time nonetheless. For one thing, Thessaloniki is famous for its vibrant food scene (apparently much more so than Athens), so let’s start with those…

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One of the restaurants our friends took us to was Massalia, and dinner was so good that we went back again the next day by ourselves for lunch. Here are just a few of the delicious dishes we tried during the evening.

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[Athens] In One Day

Categories greece
[Athens] In One Day

One day in Athens, yes it was quite rushed indeed. To see all the archaeological sites, we woke up early to beat the crowd and the heat, and it was definitely worth the effort. To make things easier, we got the combo ticket which covers 7 sites in total including the Acropolis, and started with Temple of Zeus then made our way through the rest of the area…

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[Santorini] Oia

Categories greece
[Santorini] Oia

The Greek islands, and Santorini in particular, are on many people’s bucket list of must-visits. After spending a few days there myself, I can see what the fuss is about: with the magnificent Aegean Sea as backdrop, rows of white houses cascade down the coast, their pure white punctuated only by blue-domed churches and bouganville flowers in full bloom. All this is made even more dreamy by the “most beautiful sunset in the world”…

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