Day 7: Aegean sunsets? Maybe yes and maybe no…

Well readers there is not a great deal to post today. I am sitting composing this blog at Thessaloniki airport waiting for our flight to Athens with connecting flight to Kos. It will be a long night. Unfortunately Kavalla is a bit of a wild town and so sleep was disturbed by some serious partying down in the courtyard and local hoons chugging down the street with their sound systems blaring. It was nice to chat to the fam this morning before breakfast, then it was breakfast and off on the bus, destination Thessaloniki. 

The skies were heavily overcast and the rain consistent. Today was a long way from looking like spring and this meant that Kavalla looked as grey and dark as it did yesterday afternoon. Our first stop this morning was all that is left of the ancient city of Amophilis. All that remains of what was  large bustling ancient city is a large lion statue built to honour a victory whose name escapes me. It was excavated in the early 1900s and is apparently flawed because the large lion does not have a tongue. Not much to see so off we went, heading to Thessaloniki.

Arriving in Thessaloniki we were told that this is the second largest town in Greece and boasts the largest university. Being in the northern end of Greece it is the town that has probably suffered the greatest in terms of  invasion and occupation. It was the first city to fall to the Turks and was not liberated 'til the early 1900s and it also suffered badly as a result of the civil war . It is also a fairly “depressed” looking town with a lot of graffiti and then the moment we got off the bus we were mobbed by beggars. Our first stop was a little tiny Greek café. The owner must have been thrilled to have 40 cups of coffee head his way for so little effort. I chose tea with milk and was amused to see that the milk for the tea was warmed aka cappuccino milk. Tasted a bit like burnt milo according to Paul and I am inclined to agree. Coffee and tea over we strolled down to the Thessaloniki Roman market with an amphitheatre. It is probably here that Paul would have spoken addressing the people of Thessaloniki in the public theatre where many addresses in the ancient world were made. After the market it was back up the hill to St Demetrious Orthodox basilica.

The original building dates back to the early 7^th century or even earlier but it was very badly damaged in the great fire in Thessaloniki. Rather than destroy the building, the later architects built on to it in basilica style and there are just a few remnants of the original wall artwork and mosaics. Here we also saw evidence of beautiful silver relief icons where the face is a flat one dimensional colored painting. This is because no icon face can be shown in relief and so all icons need to have a flat painted face. They are very beautiful but I cannot decide if they look incomplete or a little humorous, like the sideshow attractions where you put your face into the hole and take the photograph.

Mass today would be held in the Catholic church of the Immaculate Conception. This is a much newer building dating only to the 18^th century. It too has been through a couple of renovations but in its current form it features a large statue of Our Lady, Queen of Heaven set behind the altar. It is otherwise fairly plain in its adornments in comparison to the Orthodox churches we have visited of recent days, except for fabulous contemporary though somewhat abstract stained glass window of the Madonna.

Mass was lovely. I think the Cardinal was in his element given that he had more space around him on the sanctuary today than we all had to cram into for Mass yesterday, and in addition Sam preached a good  homily. What stood out for me about the church was the acoustics. The voices just reverberated without amplification making a lovely sound. I even ended up with a solo in the second verse of "O Lord hear my Prayer" at Communion time which was very special.

The weather was deteriorating by the minute in the town and so having waited and waited for Dimitri and the bus as Melina had gone to the hospital with Maria who was sick, we went about one block and then stopped at a small shop for a yerros. A brief drive along the waterfront to see the tower which is all that remains of the 8km wall and ramparts that were part of the original 8km long city wall that was demolished at the Ottoman invasion. The tower was turned into a prison at that point. It was too cold and wet to walk the waterfront so we huddled back on the bus and headed to the airport. And so the blog continues tonight…

Flight one from Thessaloniki was reasonably uneventful. No sooner were we in the air, drink and peanuts served , than we were on our way down. The landing was not very smooth and the overhead locker vibrated repeatedly and loudly before we came to a halt. That was nothing though in comparison to the flight from Athens to Kos. Security at the airport was tight and any beep earned you a full body frisking which was more than a touch invasive.

Then we boarded the very tiny DCH-8 plane.. all those green harvest bags in the same place was not looking promising. The plane shook and swayed fairly violently on takeoff and wobbled around for most of the flight before making an incredibly rough landing.. ouch, it was quite terrifying and it even lost direction and swerved badly to the left verge after hitting the runway. So it was scary. The only upside… a tiny peek at a sunset over the Aegean… but I am hoping that experience of sunsets improves tomorrow when we sail from Kos to Patmos. We gathered our belongings and headed out to meet up with Yanni again and be driven to our hotel in Kos. It is very lovely and dinner at 10pm was a most amazing feast… even saganaki, vine leaves and mousaka and the most evil looking deserts. Only problem… no wi fi in the hotel and so I don’t know when the next chance is that I will get to post.