Tuesday, June 14, 2017
After an 6:00 flight to Thessaloniki, Greece (1), I grabbed a bus to the city center. The church of Agia Sofia was in the center of town. The church, named after the Agia Sofia in Constantinople (later known as Istanbul), was built in the 700s. As is the case with many churches in this part of the world, the building was converted to a mosque during the Ottoman period. The frescoes and mosaics were painted over (2). The mosaics, being more resilient, survived and were restored in the twentieth century. A mosaic in the central dome depicts Jesus surrounded by a group of people. I quietly asked a priest nearby who the figures were and he just scowled at me, presumably for talking in the church.
The nearby Rotunda building was constructed in the 300s. Given the time of construction, the building is believed to have originally been a Pagan temple. The building had a much larger dome and bigger windows than Agia Sofia (which was rather gloomy) because there was better knowledge of engineering and construction techniques in the 300s than in the 700s (2).
Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic was born in Thessaloniki, known as Salonika at the time. I was surprised to see a house museum dedicated to him on the map; the Greeks and Turks have no great sympathy for each other and have disagreed on virtually everything since at least 1453. As I approached the location, I noted a large police presence, a big fence topped with spikes, and a fortified door at the back with a sign for the museum. The museum is on the grounds of the Turkish Consulate. I press a buzzer. The guards, perceiving me to be no threat, let me into the consular compound.
The house in which Kemal was born is now a museum that is rather hagiographic (3), although a display of his early life does note that he had trouble learning French and was expelled from one school for fighting with another boy. As a result of the "population transfers" negogiated between the Greek and Turkish governments in the early 1920s, the Kemal family had to leave Thessaloniki, and he never returned to the city as an adult.
It was stll morning as I walked to my hotel on Egnatia St.(4). I noted a sign for to the train station, and I remembered reading somewhere that there is a good view of Mount Olympus (birthplace of the Greek gods) from the train to Athens. A quick look at the map and train schedule told me that getting off the train at Leptokarya would provide a view of Olympus. The view of Olympus was impressive, with snow still visible at higher altitudes.
Judging by the atmosphere and license plates in Leptokarya, the town is popular with budget-conscious Serbians on beach vacations. Seeing little reason to linger in the town, I caught the next train back to Thessaloniki.
As the day waned, I took the ferry across Thessaloniki bay and back. Most of the other passengers on the trip back were the youth hostel crowd returning from a day at the beach.
(1) My two choices for departures from Western Georgia were from Batumi to Istanbul for $200+ or from Kutaisi to Thessaloniki for $27. Hence my decision to stop at Thesaaloniki on the way home.
(2) The loss of engineering and construction knowledge was mainly a result of the fall of Rome. These really were the dark ages. Another example of the heights of knowledge reached in earlier periods is the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. Opened in 537, the church had a dome bigger than any other in the western world for over 1,000 years. After the Ottomans captured the city is 1453 (a), they tried, without success, to create an equal or larger dome for hundreds of years.
(3) For example, there was a display in the basement about how much he lived children, and how much children loved him in return. Mustafa Kemal is also sometimes called Kemal Ataturk (father of the Turks) reflecting his status as the founder of the modern Turkish republic from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire (which had sided with Germany in the First World War).
(4) The modern street bears the name of, and is built above, the ancient Roman Via Egnatia, which connected (together with the Appian way) Rome and Byzantium (known later as Constantinople, then as Istanbul).
(a) An event known in the west as the "Fall of Constantinople" and in Turkey as the "Capture of Stamboul."
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