On Day 8, we had breakfast in the hotel in the rooftop restaurant. Instead of the Acropolis, we were greeted by a wonderful view of the Aegean Sea as it stretched off in the distance with a clear view of Mt Olympus accentuating the horizon. Breakfast was slim pickings for us vegans, but we ate enough to give us the energy to start off our day because we had another long day of walking in front of us. First though, we had to return the rental car. The person from Hertz came at 8:30am to pick up the car. I told him that the car was parked in a garage, so he accompanied me as we made our way there in the car in which he had come. He had a colleague with him in the car, so he could drive the rental car back to the office. The colleague dropped us off at the parking garage and went back to the office. We went to the parking space and the rental guy checked out the car to make sure that there was no damage. Then, he asked if the fuel tank was full and that's when I realized that we'd completely forgotten about it. He was nice about it though and offered to drive me in the rental car to the nearest gas station so I could pay to have the gas tank filled and then he would drop me back to the hotel before heading back to the office. But, it was apparently the first Monday morning after a 2-week holiday in Greece where mostly everybody takes a break, so the office traffic was absolutely insane at this time of day. Drivers were impatient and rude and aggressive (more so than usual!) and the rental car guy was also getting tense and irritated by it. The nearest gas station happened to be a workshop where cars were being repaired, so he just pulled over on to the sidewalk and asked the guy in the shop to "fill 'er up". This took a couple of minutes and I paid using Apple Pay. We headed back to the hotel and again got stuck in one way streets and crazy traffic. It took us more than 15 min to drive back about 1 km to the hotel. I gave him a 5 Euro tip for his trouble and thanked him.
We were already late for the start of our half-day walking tour of Thessaloniki. Our guide was already waiting in the lobby, so I rushed upstairs to get ready. Sahana was mostly ready to leave, so we hurried downstairs and met our guide, Efi. After brief introductions, she called a driver and asked him to take us to the top of the hill from which we would make our way down to the downtown area, visiting various sights on the way. She showed us the ancient fortifications (including the Trigonion Tower) that surrounded the old city and the various monasteries that served as mosques during times of occupation by Turks/Ottomans. We walked down through narrow, winding streets till we reached the current-day downtown area. The downtown area is still strewn with ruins from the time of Roman occupation. Thessaloniki has gone through various periods of rule by Romans, Turks and Greeks, so there are symbols/ruins of different periods still visible in the form of paintings, architectural ruins and the like. The Roman emperor Galerius had a significant presence in Thessaloniki during the first century AD. We visited the ruins of the palace of Galerius and the arch of Galerius before proceeding towards the White Tower of Thessaloniki which is a Byzantine fortification on the waterfront/promenade, later replaced by the Ottomans and even used as a prison and a torture chamber. From there, we made our way to the final stop of the guided tour, the statue of Alexander the Great. The statue is situated on the waterfront along the promenade. Efi gave us a brief overview of the history of Alexander and his ties to Thessaloniki.
We said goodbye to our guide at that point and decided to buy tickets for the White Tower. We were quite tired by then with all the walking but we pushed ourselves to climb up the six floors all the way to the top, stopping at each floor to view the informational plaques, the artifacts and other exhibits briefly. After the obligatory selfies on the top of the tower, we headed back down. We walked along the promenade and made our way back to the hotel. We decided to rest for a while before heading out.
In the evening, we decided to visit the Roman Forum on our own. The place was off limits for an actual walkthrough but we could walk on the sidewalk of the four streets that surrounded the ruins to get a good view from a height, so we did that. With our limited knowledge, we could identify some parts of the whole area including a stadium of some kind where we assume gladiators fought and entertained Roman senators and such.
By then, we had burned off all the breakfast we had earlier in the day and were ready for dinner. We found a vegan restaurant called OMG@SKG which sounded very appealing. It was supposed to close at 7pm according to Google and it was past 6:15pm, so we walked quickly there. We reached at around 6:30pm but the place was already closed. We were bitterly disappointed because we were really looking forward to eating there. Also, it was on our way to our next port of call, the Umbrellas (more about that later). We couldn't find any other restaurant with a good vegan menu in that area, so we had to make our way back to a restaurant closer to our hotel, a place called Handwich which has different types of vegan sandwiches on their menu. We shared one sandwich (actually more like a souvlaki) and some fries. The food was delicious and we really wish we had time to go back one more time but it wasn't to be.
Energized by the food in our bellies, we made our way back (a looong way) to the Umbrellas, which is an art installation on the waterfront/promenade close to the statue of Alexander the Great. There wasn't a lot to see or do there except take a few selfies in the fading light of the evening. From there, we walked back (again a long way) to our hotel, getting a few shots of the sunset over the Aegean Sea.
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