Greece Me Up!

What’s up with Greece then? Thousands of years after the great minds of Aristoteles, Plato, Socrates, Archimedes, Euclid and a host of other famous scientists and philosophers thought so hard that they pretty much created civilization as we know it, there seems nowadays to be nothing other than bad news about Greece in the average newspaper. Despite this, I figured that any country where the road signs and newspaper headlines look like giant mathematical equations can’t be that bad and has to be worth a visit, so as soon as I found a cheap flight I didn’t book twice.

The city of Thessaloniki is nicely situated on a massive bay, a pleasant and scenic half-hour flight north of Athens. It’s surprisingly big – apparently, more than a million people live there – but the central part is relatively compact and, assuming you don’t mind constantly dodging cars and motorbikes that seem hell-bent of running you over, it’s quite a pleasant place to walk around. The seafront is especially nice – a g