Thessaloniki - city sights and a long bus ride

Day 6 (14 Nov 2025)

Our morning was spent seeing the sights of Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece after Athens and it's very pretty. Our tour guide Angela is from Thessaloniki and was clearly very proud of her city. We walked by the promenade which is the longest promenade in Greece - 5km of it by the beautiful Aegean sea. 

I was thinking that God blessed us with truly wonderful weather. It's supposed to be the rainy season but so far, it has only rained when we're indoors. The moment we need to explore an outdoor area, the weather clears up. The sea and skies in Greece are so blue 💙 

We saw a statue of Alexander the Great who is one of the great conquerors in the ancient world. In fact, Bible scholars agree that he was the leopard in Daniel's prophecy in Daniel 7. He conquered the entire Medo-Persian empire at great speed and at a very young age.

 We also saw the White Tower which has a dubious past. It was originally built to protect the city from pirates but during the Ottoman Empire, was turned into a prison where executions were held. It was later whitewashed and renamed the White Tower. It's now a museum. 

We drove by the ancient walls of Thessaloniki which used to protect the city...

...and up the Acropolis, the highest part of the city where we had a bird's eye view of the city.

The apostle Paul preached three times in Thessaloniki, but because a lot of the city was destroyed during the various wars, there is no record of exactly where. But we know there was a large Jewish community here, close to 60,000 Jews lived here. When the Nazis occupied the city, they confiscated Jewish property and sent the Jews to camps. Only 4% came back thereafter 😕

Then we hopped onto the bus and drove to the Archaeological Park of Dion, at the peaks of Mount Olympus. Dion was dedicated to various gods, particularly Zeus. 

 

 

We saw the remains of an agora from the time of the Roman empire. Here you can see what would have been shops, not too different from our marketplaces now.

 

There were Roman baths, where furnaces were fired up to heat pillars which would then heat up the floor and walls. 

 
We also saw a Roman public toilet where people would sit side by side doing their business while having a chat about politics perhaps. Communal living at the next level! 

Lunch was at a tavern along the way. The food was pretty unmemorable, hence no pictures.

And this is me fangirling with local Mediacorp actress Felicia Chin who's on the same tour group as us with her husband. I'm not typically enamoured with local actors but Felicia is a fellow World Vision child sponsor, so I have a soft spot for her.

 

We didn't do too much today as most of the time was spent on the bus driving back from Thessaloniki to Athens. I think it was about 7 hours. I know toward the end, I felt so cooped up I wanted to scream and jump up and down. Much as I've enjoyed this trip, I remember why I dislike package tours. 

I didn't eat much for lunch as I didn't care for the food, so at a pitstop, I ordered a slice of chocolate cake that looked really tempting. It turned out to be waaaay too sweet (that's saying something for someone like me with a tremendous sweet tooth!) because there's no cake at all, it's just a giant chunk of chocolate!

 

We  said goodbye to our tour guide Angela and driver Alex as this is the end of their leg with us. We'll be boarding a cruise tomorrow. They've both been absolutely wonderful and truly looked after the group well. I will miss hearing Angela's perky "Kalimera!" every morning. The banter between them is quite fun too as Angela is from Thessaloniki and Alex from Athens, so there's some healthy rivalry there! 

 

Felt like we would never arrive in Athens but we finally did. It's back to The Stanley, the same hotel we stayed in when we first arrived in Greece. This time, we made it to see the rooftop pool area.

 

UNESCO Heritage Monasteries of Meteora

Day 4 (12 Nov 2025)

 

The highlight of the day is visiting UNESCO World Heritage Meteora which refers to the monasteries perched on top of free-standing rocks. But first, when we got outside the hotel, such a magnificent view greeted us! The surrounding mountainous area is simply picturesque. We couldn't see it last night when we arrived as the sun had already set and it was pitch dark.

 

It was a long winding drive up the mountains. How monasteries came about was interesting. The early Christians in the Roman Empire were persecuted for claiming Jesus as Lord as the Roman emperors considered themselves lords over the citizens. As such, many of the Christians went into hiding. They prayed in catacombs, deserts, and became monks. Monasteries were often built in secluded places to avoid detection, and what better way to prevent access than build on top of high rocks?

  

After Emperor Constantine received a vision, he became converted to Christianity and allowed the practice of all religions. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and the landscape changed. People became monks for different reasons, large to isolate themselves from secular life. There are more than 500 monasteries in Greece.

 

In Meteora, the first monks arrived here in the 11th Century. The first monastery we visited was Varlaam. It wasn't too bad of a climb and the view was spectacular. We were advised that women had to wear long skirts as modest wear for the monasteries. 

  

 

The guide explained that the difference between a monastery and a church is that monasteries are a self-contained compound with a complex of buildings because the monks live here. There is a church, living quarters, gardens, kitchen, hospital, etc. Monks are not allowed to have any personal possessions but they as a group, they can own property like vineyards and fields to earn a living via selling wine, candles, etc. In modern day, they sell tickets for admission. Monasteries are built like castles to keep out pirates, thieves and other unsavoury characters.   

The church inside the monastery is typical of a Greek Orthodox church - with lots of paintings to depict stories from the Bible because many people back then couldn't read. So looking at the pictures would help them contemplate and remember what God had done. The guide explained that the Greek Orthodox church is different from the Catholic church in that they don't recognise the Pope as the head of the church, and they don't have statues but paintings. (Few pictures cos we're not allowed to take photos inside the churches).

 

 

Wine cellar

Monastery Museum

Woman at the well

  

When the monastery was first built, there were no stairs and monks had climb the rock walls. Supplies were brought up using pulleys. We happened to be up in one of rooms when we saw someone hauling up a crate of water. The system is still being used today!

 

We then boarded the bus and headed for the second monastery which was the St Stephan's nunnery. Again more spectacular views.

 

 This is the view that I painted two days later in my sketchbook:

 

It's a crazy approach, looks so unreal the nunnery perched at the edge of the rocks like some fairy tale. It's one of the more accessible monasteries, according to the guide. Some of the others are extremely remote and hard to get to.

 

We were brought to a shop selling religious items. Historically, it's quite amazing to think that Greece transformed from being the centre of idolatry to a nation of 80% Christians, thanks to the apostle Paul. However, from what I see, I think idolatry is well and alive still today.

 

 

Had lunch at a nearby restaurant. The Greeks eat huge meals. Every meal we've had comes with an appetiser, a salad, a main course and dessert. After a while, some of us started to share one portion between two people as it was simply too much.

 

 

And of course, there are always hopeful cats lurking around. Even their strays are pretty.

 

After lunch we made our way to Veria (historically spelled Berea). This was one of the earliest cities Paul preached in and its inhabitants were among the first in the Roman Empire to believe in the gospel. According to the Bible, the Bereans were noble and checked Paul's words against Scripture to see if what he said matched up. They sought truth and didn't just take what Paul said at face value. We can all learn from this. 

 

"As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. ¹² As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." - Acts 17:10-12

 

A memorial has been built to commemorate where Paul preached. 

 

  

 

The Tung Ling dean held a devotional here. The shop opposite the memorial provided stools which I thought was quite an ingenious arrangement. No doubt tour groups do this all the time and would go on to the shop thereafter to purchase souvenirs (unfortunately for them, we had to rush off immediately after the devotional, no time for shopping!) 

 

To be honest, I don't remember what she said cos I was wrapped up in my own thoughts. I was contemplating how Paul walked 80km here after being persecuted by the Jews in Thessaloniki, and his sheer tenacity and determination to share the gospel despite the odds and despite all his suffering. How quickly we get discouraged today by the slightest insinuation, a harsh word, in comparison. How quickly we doubt God's goodness when He doesn't immediately remove our obstacles or resolve all our problems.

 

After the devotional, we drove to our stop for the night - Porto Palace Hotel Thessaloniki. This is one super weird hotel. It's huge and a little eerie - our room was all the way to the back of the hotel past deserted corridors. The room looked perfectly normal, until I saw this huge painting on one of the walls:  

 

 

I mean, seriously???? Who would hang this sort of painting in a hotel room?? It just added to the haunted hotel vibe 🫣 I whined to my roommate that I couldn't possibly sleep with this staring and me, and she immediately took it down and propped it facing the wall. What would I do without her 🥰 And then we both said cleansing prayers over the room.

 

The room also had no air conditioning because it's close to winter so it has been switched to heating. The front desk told to just open the window if it's stuffy which we did. We found out later that some other people in the group had windows that opened out to a passageway (unlike ours which opens into an airwell). So it's either sleep without ventilation or risk having someone climb into your room.