Moving on to Greece...first stop, Saloniki

I left Rome yesterday and am now in Greece!  I will go to Athens tomorrow, but because I wanted to see the northern part of the country as well as the south,  I decided to spend a couple of nights in Thessalonica.  It's the second largest city in Greece, and is also known as Thessaloniki, Salonica, and Saloniki.  Very confusing!  For the purposes of this blog, I'm going to use one of the shorter forms of the name: Saloniki. 

Saloniki was founded in 315BC and later became one of the largest cities in the Byzantine Empire.  It is still a large and vibrant city, with a mix of big modern buildings and old Byzantine structures.  And when I say a mix, I really mean it!  My pictures below will show ancient excavation sites right in the middle of town sandwiched between modern shops and apartment buildings.  The city sits on the edge of the Aegean Sea and has always been a major port for products coming from all over the world into eastern and central Europe.  The docks are still very busy and as you walk along the city's boardwalk you see ships lined up waiting to get into port and be unloaded.

So far, I really love Greece.  For one thing, Greek food is among my favorite cuisines.  While the food in Italy was absolutely delicious, it's also very heavy.  I love pizza and pasta, but you can only eat it so many times in a row before you begin to crave something a bit lighter.  Of course, every time I said that to Tanya, I could see her rolling her eyes on my Skype screen no matter how poor the connection.  She could exist on pasta alone and can't imagine how I could possibly tire of it.  In Italy, when you order dinner, pasta is always your first course no matter what else you get.  Try ordering just the "secondo" (entrée) without the "primo" (first course of pasta) and they look at you as if you're a little weird.  And the primo isn't just a small plate of pasta.  It's a large portion that in the US we would consider enough for an entire meal.  Also, if you order a salad with your meal, it doesn't come first. It either comes with your secondo or after it as a light course before dessert.  I had lost weight on this trip from doing so much walking, but I think I put in all back on in Italy.  Of course, the daily gelato didn't help, but it sure was good.  I never got tired of that!

The food in Greece has been equally spectacular.  And, way less expensive!  I ate lunch and dinner yesterday for less than what I typically paid in Rome for dinner alone.  I went to a little restaurant last night for dinner and decided to start with a plate that offered a variety of appetizers.  It had a basketful of bread, tzatziki (a yogurt dip made with garlic and cucumbers...it's the creamy sauce you get on gyros in the US), a sampling of cured meats, dolmades (a rice mixture wrapped in grape leaves), a variety of pickled veggies, a tomato and cucumber salad with egg, an anchovy, olives, and some pepperoncini.  I wish I had taken my camera with me to get some pics, but I had left it at the hotel.  The whole thing cost only 2 euros (about $2.60).  My entrée of 2 large pieces of cod (caught fresh that day) with a rice and herb pilaf cost only 6 euros. Greece is suffering through some terrible economic woes, but it is currently a foreign traveler's paradise in terms of prices.

Today I went out to see the sights, including a visit to the Museum of Byzantine Culture.  I had read online that it has won several awards for its collections, which include not only artifacts of the religious and noble classes, but also those of regular working folks.  It was a really great museum.  Not only is the collection interesting with lots of information, but the layout of the galleries is very well done.  It takes you through different time periods from the 2nd and 3rd centuries right up to the post-Byzantine periods of the 15th-18th centuries.  The displays are well organized and include everything from tombs to religious iconography to daily implements like tools, dishes, cooking vessels, combs, coins, jewelry, and much more.  The first few galleries I went into had signs indicating no photography was allowed, but as I got near the end of the museum I saw some people taking photos so I asked an attendant if it was ok.  Turns out it was only the first few galleries (of the oldest stuff) where cameras weren't allowed.  Unfortunately, I was almost at the end already, but I did get a few pics.

So, here is Saloniki in pictures....

As you can see from this pic (taken from my hotel balcony last night), Saloniki is a large, vibrant, modern city.

 

This is an old Byzantine church that sits in a park 2 blocks from my hotel.

On the other side of the park sits an old Roman bathhouse called the Paradiso Baths.  I wanted to look inside, but it's closed on Tuesdays.

I like the architecture here.  This modern building is a very pretty example, but fairly typical of the style...clean lines, symmetry, and light exterior colors. 

This is the White Tower, which sits right along the coastline.  It was a lookout tower to guard against attacks from the sea, but it has also been used as a prison and a museum.

This is a painting on wood from around the middle of the 14th century.  I was amazed at how vivid the colors remain after 650 years.  I asked one of the gallery attendants if it had been touched up and she said no.  She said the Byzantines developed a type of laminate that would seal the wood so the colors wouldn't absorb and then another that went on top to protect them from chipping and fading. 

This was a cabinet front from around the 15th century. 

I thought this display in a toy story window was amusing.  Get your child a toy car...attached to a tapered candle!

Old and new mix together all throughout Saloniki.

This is an excavation site right near the center of town.

The original city gate.

Some closer detail of carvings on the gate.

Looks like Greek to me.  Oh wait...it is Greek!  I now understand why, of all the languages in the world, this one was chosen for a cliché meaning incomprehensible.  Luckily, most restaurant menus include an English translation.

There are dogs and cats all over this town...and most don't seem to belong to anyone.  I saw small groups of dogs like these lying around sleeping all over the place.  The cats seemed to favor the ruins.  I saw several lying atop the warm bricks of an excavation site taking in the sun. 

This was the side salad that came with my lunch.  It was enough for a meal in itself...and absolutely delicious!

 

                                    



   

The ruins...



 

These first two pictures aren't of the ruins.  On the way to see the ruins of the Colosseum, I passed by a small, non-descript church with a lovely courtyard so I wandered in to take a peak.  The courtyard was simple and pretty...but the inside was surprisingly ornate for such a small sanctuary.

 

The church courtyard with a little fountain in the center.

The ornate altar in marble with a ceiling and wall motif done using mosaic tiles.

 

These are the ruins of the Temple of Peace, one of the few ancient Roman temples dedicated to something other than one of the gods.

Along the top of this hill you can see a portion of the old Roman aqueducts.  This one was used to supply a common well for the homes that once occupied the area below.

The Colosseum.  Construction on this gigantic structure began in 70AD and it was completed by 80AD.  In only 10 years, the Romans built this arena that could hold 50,000 spectators.  Roman culture from that time period boggles my mind a bit.  In many ways, they were so enlightened and advanced, as exemplified in this structure.  Yet, the Colosseum was the site of horrifically barbaric entertainment.  The masses turned out in droves to see gladiators fight to the death and slaves torn to pieces by wild animals.  It's hard to understand how a culture could be so sophisticated and civilized, while at the same time being so primitive and savage. 

Another view of the Colosseum.

The citizens of Rome passed through these gates to enter the exterior grounds of the Colosseum.

These lovely gates led to the Palantine Hill.  It was where the Emperors and Imperial court of Rome lived.

 

The Vatican...

I wrote about these nuns sitting beside me in a café just outside the Vatican in an earlier post.  I wanted to get a pic of them at the table because they were so amusing, but that seemed rude.  Instead, I got this shot of three of them when they all got up to select a dessert.

 

 

St. Peter's Square

St. Peter's Cathedral.  If you look closely, you can see the line waiting to enter at the base of the cathedral.  The line extends out of the frame and ended way up behind where I was standing to take this picture...a 2 hour wait, and the line for the museum was even longer.

A portion of the columned promenade around St. Peter's Square.

 

I took this from the steps of the cathedral using my zoom.  This is a close-up of a few of the statues on top of the promenade.

The Vatican guard.  Not easy to keep a straight face in that uniform, but they seemed very, very serious.

 

 

The beautiful spiral staircase inside the Vatican museum.

This is my tour group examining one of the Emperor Nero's tubs. The woman holding the scarf-draped baton is our guide, Antonella.  The gray-haired gentleman standing beside her is Ajit from India.  He was so sweet to me...he held my hand every time we went up or down stairs and always made sure I could get a good spot for any pictures I wanted to take.  He was like a kind and gentle grandfather. 

This is a statue of a fertility goddess...I believe it speaks for itself!

This is the ceiling of the map room in the museum.  It was even more impressive than the map collection.

This is on the ceiling of another gallery.  Believe it or not, this is one-dimensional; a painting using perspective and shadowing to give the illusion of the depth of sculpture.

This is one panel representing about 1/3 of one of the huge tapestries on display in the tapestry hall of the museum.  It's hard to tell the enormity of the size in the photo, but this one portion would probably cover 2 queen-sized beds easily.

 

 

These are the "holy doors" on the front of St. Peter's Cathedral.  They are only opened every 25 years.

This is inside the cathedral looking towards Bellini's canopy over the altar.

To give some perspective to the height, I took this standing at the bottom of one of the canopy's columns.  It is 98ft high from base to tip.

 

 

I took this shot of the interior of the dome using the zoom function on my camera.  Sometimes using the zoom creates pictures that turn out fuzzy, but this one wasn't too bad. 

The streets of Rome...

Musicians perform on the subway for tips.

Throngs of tourists taking a rest on the Spanish Steps.

This is not a fancy sculpture, but rather a typical Roman water fountain...for drinking.  Rome has some of the cleanest and most delicious water in the world, and these fountains are very handy for refilling a water bottle throughout the day.

Most street musicians work alone or in pairs, but this was a whole band and they were terrific.  They had a big crowd of people singing and dancing in the streets!  In fact, I think the two women in the picture had just dropped their bags and joined in to sing.

A typical little café.

There are all manner of street performers, and painting oneself up in silver, gold, or bronze and posing like a statue until a coin is tossed is very common.  This troupe of guys were taking a little break.

An artist working on the street.

A fountain in Piazza del Popolo.

 

This cute little guy was riding the subway with me one morning.  He looks like he could be Dexter's (Tanya's dog) Italian cousin. Sorry for the slight fuzziness...the movement of the subway car obscures the clarity a bit.

Of all the street performers I saw, this was the most unique.  The guy on bottom is holding up the guy on top with one hand.  If there is a trick or illusion to this, I couldn't see it, and I looked all around his arm, shoulder, back, and hand.  Both men seemed to be in a trance.  I passed them going up a street and about an hour later when I passed coming back down, they hadn't moved a millimeter.   

 

Did I mention it was crowded?

These street-corner shrines to the Virgin Mary are common.  I saw them in Florence also.

Look at these gorgeous artichokes on display in front of a restaurant.

 

 

Rome - the city of a million wonders

Sorry for the lack of posts, but the wifi in my apartment in Rome never worked.  Here in Greece, I have fairly decent wifi but for some reason last night I couldn't get Blogger to work.  It froze up on me halfway through writing a post and then wouldn't let me back into the Blogger site at all.  It must have been a problem on their end, however, because I could get to anything and everything else online...just not the one place I really wanted to be in order to share several days worth of travels with you guys.  Oh, and I have so much to share about Rome!  It is an absolutely beautiful city and, like Amsterdam, a place where I could wander endlessly for days.  There are a multitude of things to see and do.  Around almost every corner is a public square and every square is a wonder of architecture and sculpture.  The streets are filled with artists of every sort.  And the food is delicious!  I had read somewhere that you couldn't find a bad meal in Rome if you tried, and I totally believe it. 

It was very, very crowded in Rome...the most crowded place I've been so far.  What I didn't know was that last week is a big traveling week in Europe.  Kids are out of school the week after Easter, and that's when Europeans take what was described to me as their "short holiday" of only 1 week.  Later in the summer they take their "long holiday" which lasts, on average, around 3-4 weeks.  We in the US could learn a thing or two from the European's idea of a vacation!

Although everything in Rome is gorgeous, I was surprised to find that my favorite place was The Vatican.  As you emerge from the metro station near Vatican City, you are immediately accosted by people wanting to sell you a "skip the lines" tour.  As you walk the few blocks to enter St. Peter's Square, you cannot avoid these extremely pushy vendors...it seemed as though there were hundreds of them and the cost of 50 euros was exorbitant since entry to both the museum and cathedral is only 16 euros combined.  I ignored them, as I planned to just purchase entry tickets and do the tours myself.  But when I realized the wait for entrance to the Vatican museum, which includes the Sistine Chapel, was 3 hours long and then the separate line for St. Peter's Cathedral was 2 hours long, I reconsidered.  I stood and looked up the street at all the various hawkers of tours, yelling and following people and trying to shove brochures into people's hands.  Ugh...I wanted no part of that.  Then I saw a young woman who was not accosting people, but just simply standing with a sign indicating a tour package for sale.  Her name was Franka and she was so nice.  She's originally from Nigeria but has lived in Rome for 8 years.  She has an MA in history, but is currently working on a PhD in economics.  I was happy to find that her tour was only 40 euros, and included skipping the lines, the cost of all entry tickets, and an English speaking guide named Antonella who took you through everything and communicated to you through a headset device so you could hear her easily over all the noise of dozens of other tour groups going through.  The tour group she works for also only does small tours of a dozen or less people at a time.  I saw many guides going through with probably 40-50 people at a time, so it was nice to be with a smaller group where you get individual attention (Antonella learned all our names), time to make pictures, and can ask questions.  Although it was a lot of money, it was totally worth it and I felt like I really got lucky with the tour I chose.

The Vatican is nothing short of spectacular.  My tour included the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Cathedral, and the grottoes underneath the cathedral.  The Vatican Museum is the second largest museum in the world, and houses one of the most stunning collections of art I've ever seen.  There are 54 galleries within the museum, all of them filled with the most impressive collection of paintings, sculpture, and tapestries imaginable.  I was happy to have a guide who could point out things of particular interest and tell stories about the collection along the way.  The final gallery on the tour is the Sistine Chapel, the walls and ceilings of which were painted by Michelangelo.  No pictures are allowed in the Chapel...in fact, it is forbidden to even speak inside.  People would begin whispering to each other, but guards would tell them quickly, and in no uncertain terms, to stop immediately or get out.  Antonella used a large laminated photograph to explain all the paintings we would see before we entered.  She also reminded us that just a few short weeks ago, the Cardinals of the Catholic Church were locked inside that very room to elect the new Pope.  She explained to us where the chimney had been set up (it has since been removed) to deliver the white smoke signaling to the world that a new Pope has been chosen.    

This may make me sound crazy to some of you (most of you already know I'm a little crazy), but as I stood in the Sistine Chapel taking it all in...the story of Moses on one wall, the story of Jesus on the other, mankind's creation depicted across the ceiling...I felt my eyes well up and tears begin to roll down my cheeks.  It's just so beautiful that I could not help being moved by it...and I'm not Catholic or even religious in any traditional sense.  It's just so magnificent.  The Creation of Adam panel depicting God passing life to Adam through the tips of their fingers stretching out to one another...it's exquisite.  And to think that Michelangelo created it while hanging upside down with paint dripping back into his eyes...what an amazing artist. 

After leaving the Chapel we went straight into St. Peter's Cathedral, which is also huge and incredible. It's like a museum itself, with works by Raphael, Michelangelo, and Bernini, just to name a few.  The canopy over the altar was designed by Bernini.  It is the largest bronze sculpture in the world and stands 98ft tall under the cathedral's dome.  It is here, under this canopy that the Pope performs holy rituals such as the Eucharist.                    

I loved every minute of my time in Rome and hope to return one day.  I have lots of pictures to share, but I am going to do them in separate posts and try to organize them by category.    
 

In Rome...having wifi issues

Hello all!  Sorry for no blog yesterday, but I am having wifi issues in the apartment where I am staying.  Giorgio, my host, is trying to get it fixed but for now I am having to blog and email from cafes.  If there are fewer blogs than usual over the weekend, you'll know it didn't get fixed.

I am currently sitting in a café right outside the Vatican, where they have free wifi and excellent French fries.  The chicken panini is pretty good, too.  There is a table full of nuns right beside me and they are talking up a storm and laughing heartily.  They have finished their meal and just gotten espressos and big bowls of dessert...looks like whipped cream or some sort of white pudding with a chocolate dusting on top.  One of them has her napkin draped over her cross necklace to prevent spills on her habit.  Funny!  They dispel the impression of austerity I associate with nuns.   

Rome is beautiful beyond words.  It is the most unique mix of ancient and modern I have ever seen.  They call it the Eternal City and I can see why.  Ancient ruins seem to just sprout from the ground all over the place.  Every plaza is a treasure of artwork.  The Trevi Fountain flows and sparkles in the sun as tourists gape in awe at its wonder.  Indeed, around every corner a new treasure causes the jaw to drop.

The wifi here is not super-fast, so I can only load a few pics, but here is a beginning....

My cute little apartment in Rome.

A lot of buildings here have greenery on top, or coming out the sides.

The Trevi Fountain

A closer view.

The Trajan Column.  It is 138ft high and was completed in 113AD.  The battles of the Dacian War are depicted in the relief that spirals up the column.

On top there was originally a statue of Trajan, but it disappeared and was later replaced with this one of St. Peter.  And on to of St. Peter is a pigeon!

Another fabulous fountain in front of yet another church named for Santa Maria.