Bit of a snag in my travel plans.
I got to the airport in Thessaloniki yesterday only to find out my flight to Izmir had left twenty minutes before I had arrived; so while I sat steaming in the taxi ride back to the city center, I realized that a few things would come as a result of this–first, since the next flight to Izmir would not be until the next two days, it seems as if my trip to that city has been effectively scratched.
Second, on a more positive note, it means that I can spend more time in Salonica writing and exploring, at least until I take my next flight to Istanbul (which I rebooked). And I love this city–so it’s more of a blessing in disguise (or “kismet,” my dad says). My new itinerary (tentatively) looks like this:
- Thessaloniki to Istanbul (1/08)
- Istanbul to Varna (1/12)
- Varna to Sofia (1/15)
- Sofia to NYC/Ithaca/My bed (1/19)
In the meantime, for today and tomorrow morning I hope to upload many more pictures and provide a bit more textual evidence surrounding my project (though I’ve found that to be a little tricky when the weather is so nice in Greece). Today is a coffee-and-Joy Division kind of day anyway (grey and cloudy too), so I thought what better way to spend that than by sharing a little more of what I’ve encountered in the past week or so.
I Prinkipos, a café/bar close to the Turkish consulate building in Thessaloniki
I’ll start with “I Prinkipos,” a charming café popular with both locals and Turkish tourists (many go to see Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s birthplace–a quaint house close to the Turkish consulate–which stands right outside of the bar’s main window). The interior of the place looks markedly Turkish. Probably the best example is the mural of Istanbul’s Blue Mosque painted next to the bar area (though I’m not sure why there are only four minarets instead of six. Someone help me out here). I got to know the owners after visiting this place a few times–as it turns out, this place is only about twenty years old, having replaced a similar (more traditional) café that had been around since the turn of the twentieth century.
French posters depicting Constantinople and l’Orient adorn the walls. Turkish fare such as rakı are pretty commonplace up in here as well. But the owners’ real heart is in their beer selection (I tried to hold my own and recommend them a few brews–Cascazilla and Dogfish Head managed to make the list).
Sultan Ahmet Camii Mural
The Turkophilia definitely runs deep in this place, but I’d say it strays more towards the late half of the Ottoman Empire as opposed to the focus of my project. “Nostalgia” isn’t exactly the right word to describe this place either, but by walking inside, it certainly has a photographic feel to it–the owners have definitely invested a good amount in turning back time via this café. And there’s more: the food is the best I’ve had so far on this trip. Fried white cheese with lemon marmalade and pomegranate seeds? Yes, thank you.
The White Tower
I also happened upon the White Tower once again, this time to actually climb the top and see the city skyline (before I had only walked alongside the tower entrance–that’s where many of my sea-related pictures came from in part one of the blog’s Thessaloniki scrapbook). The tower is the unofficial symbol of Salonica–built by Süleyman the Magnificent during the 15th century to fortify the city’s harbor, it had replaced a previous fortification built by the Byzantines three centuries earlier. Another Ottoman tower had been built on the other side of the city; however, it no longer exists today.
The White Tower had become the city symbol only “by coincidence,” the plaque by the entrance reads, perhaps suggesting that despite the efforts of Greek nationalists to distance themselves from their Ottoman past as much as possible, the imposing presence of the tower (and its complicated history) still managed to fold into the cultural importance of a new, “modernized” Thessaloniki. For those who are curious, the tower had once been a prison and scene of mass executions during the period of Ottoman rule–it was branded the “white” tower after a prisoner had whitewashed the fortification, subsequently covering up any bloodstains on the walls in exchange for his freedom.
Fortification and protection of the city always held sway in the Ottoman’s urban blueprint–Mark Mazower writes that the sultans added batteries–“like the ‘mouths of great lions'”–at vital spots along the coastline as well as a fortress in-between the walls that divided the harbor and the Evliya Celebi “counted a tower every five hundred paces, and spent five hours pacing the entire perimeter across the hilly ground. Each night, he writes, ‘the sultan’s music’ is heard within the walls, while the garrison patrols shot: ‘God is One!'” (Mazower 94). “No houses were permitted to be built on the far side of the walls for security,” Mazower continues, “and even today a tiny lane, barely a car’s width, snaking round the outside perimeter past the shacks which cling to the steep northwest side of the ramparts, traces of what is left of the invisible outline of this policy” (Ibid., 94-5).
The fortifications surrounding the tower have since been replaced by a square (frequented often by skateboarders).
Today, the White Tower is a museum of the city’s history, which wasn’t half bad (audio guides in English are available). Though I will say that after reading Salonica: City of Ghosts all six floors of the museum did seem a bit repetitive in comparison (get the book instead). I did see some cool old maps of the city inside the tower, though, which I’ll try to find and post here.
More views of the tower:
Thessaloniki coast, close to the city center, right after the city ceded from the Ottoman Empire
In Rumelia 
