I visited Greece last year, spending a week in Athens and then another in Thessaloniki to attend a wedding.

I took so many pictures and they’re just languishing in my phone, so I decided put them into a small travel post.

Athens

My favorite places to visit in Athens were the Temple of Poseidon and the Ancient Agora. Of course, the Acropolis was also unforgettable. But the views from Poseidon’s temple and the calmness and quiet of the Ancient Agora were what stuck with me.

Ancient Agora

The Ancient Agora, though in the middle of Athens, had an extremely peaceful vibe. It was not overly packed and had many nature spots to sit and just relax in. It’s also home of the Temple of Hephaestus, apparenty one of the best-preserved of its kind in Greece.

There is a small museum there as well. I’ve been slowly learning Greek a little and it was so cool to be able to actually read the names and other texts on these ancient artifacts.

Temple of Poseidon

I took a day tour to the Temple of Poseidon. We even stopped by a beach for a quick dip on the way. Seeing the sunset from the temple was absolutely gorgeous.

The Acropolis

I wish I’d have gotten a guided tour. The place is so full of history, it was impossible to absorb all the information from just the existing markers.

The city

I was staying in a touristy district so of course I didn’t get a proper view of the city as a whole, but the parts I saw were wonderful. At the same time, I quickly learned to be careful with where I order drinks in Athens - a frappe at a more touristy location often cost three times as much as one that’s equally delicious from a tiny shop. It’s frothed instant coffee with ice and milk, so it really is cheap if you just duck into a little side-street.

I also discovered a Ukrainian restaurant in another part of town! It was great to finally satiate my craving for some Ukrainian food after all these years. The place was called Cafe Bar 67 in the Exarchia neighborhood. This neighborhood was definitely a little bit out of the touristic area, which really registered when I saw a police officer dressed in what appeared to be full-on riot gear just chilling on a seemingly-random street corner with a massive shield. When I asked a Greek friend about it, he said “Oh yeah that’s the lobsters”.

In this neighborhood there was also a red pickup truck driving by yelling over a loudspeaker. When asked, my friend was quite happy that I got to witness this part of Athens.

Thessaloniki

After a few days in Athens it was time to fly out to Thessaloniki, where Dimitris is from and where we were attending the wedding. I stayed at Poseidon Hostel on Aristotelous Square, which was great. I had my own room, but met many fascinating people in the hostel’s gathering areas.

Thessaloniki has great coffee. I’d argue it was easier to find a good cup of coffee in Thessaloniki than even in Athens. And a few of them even have my favorite milk replacement: Sproud! I did a lot of writing at coffee shops here in my downtime.

Vergina and the Tomb of Philip II

One of my favorite events from this part of the trip (aside from the wedding of course!) was taking a trip to Vergina. We started at a newly-opened museum called Polycentric Museum of Aigai. It sort of connects all these other sites in Vergina, including the Royal Tombs of Aigai.

It was very quiet when we arrived; maybe not many visitors know about this place yet? But it was excellent. I enjoyed learning about both the artifacts on display and the way they’ve built the museum for optimal preservation of them.

We then went to the royal tombs, where the tomb of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, is thought to be located.

rOOTS in Thessaloniki

This place deserves is own section. rOOTS is a vegetarian cafe in Thessaloniki and has some of the best food I have ever had. Not just the best vegetarian food: the best any food.

Of course you go and try the street food in Thessaloniki. It’s delicious. The halloumi gyros? The trigona? Ate them all. Multiple times. Loved them.

But once I discovered this place, I was physically incapable of not going there daily for the rest of my trip.

They even have a cat who hangs around constantly begging patrons for food. An obligate carnivore begging for vegetarian food.

Labor protests

There were very large protests happening in the city over the last few days of the trip. I tried to get an idea of what they were all about from my local friends but fear I still won’t be able to explain the situation in a nuanced-enough way, so here’s a very rough gist of what I got.

From what I understand the protests were mostly centered around upcoming changes in labor laws–possibly extending the working week and hours employees may be asked to work. People were demonstrating against exploiting employees with the normalization of a 6-day work week. A few locals I spoke to said that in many companies these kinds of exploitative conditions are already common, and the bill is not really introducing anything that isn’t already happening.

Home time

All in all it was an informative and busy trip. This is my third time visiting Greece. First time in Athens, second in Thessaloniki. It’s a beautiful country with amazing people as well as challenges that we as tourists don’t always appreciate.

An aside

I’d left this post for so long that with some of my favorite and most memorable pictures, I forgot the name of the architecture they depicted–awkward.

And thus another personal use case for ChatGPT was discovered:

The above one might be pretty easy to ChatGPT to recognize, so I decided to test it with a different shot that I actually knew. This photo was of a more partial part of the architecture and I thought ChatGPT might have a slightly harder time placing it:

Okay, but come on, I thought. It’s THE PARTHENON. Let’s try something else:

Anyway, it just made me smile with this unexpected bit of helpfulness over my morning coffee.