Thessaloniki-Halkidiki-Thassos Island

Thessaloniki

We arrived to Thessaloniki in the afternoon at 104 degrees (Fahrenheit) and took the “express” bus 01X to town. I do not recommend it; it’s not an express, stops every block to pick up people. This painful journey took an hour in a non AC bus.

We stayed two nights at Factory Inn Nillie hospitality apartments in a nice new one bedroom, good location in old building that was going thru renovations but close to everything.

Because of the extreme heat we couldn’t walk around as much as we would have liked to; we did go to an amazing Jewish Museum documenting a rich history not only of a Jewish Community but of the entire city. In the evening we took a free walking tour with Gorges, a great tour guide and walked along the promenade hoping for some relief from the heat. For food I recommend lunch at the Kapani market, Stou Mitsou restaurant – good nouveau Greek cuisine and the best grilled octopus on this trip. 

The next day we took a taxi to the airport and picked up our rental car deciding that we couldn’t deal with the bus again ( 28 Euro). We got a SKG car rental thru Discover car rental agency ($511 for two weeks, automatic and unlimited miles).

Halkidiki

We drove to Halkidhiki to explore the three peninsulas –called the three fingers: Kassandra, Sithonia and Athos.

1. Kassandra:

Drove thru but didn’t stop In Nea Moudania, it looked cute, a typical Mediterranean vacation town. We had no idea which town to go to in Kassandra so started from the eastern side.

Overall, most towns have beach clubs costing between 10 euro per two beds with an umbrella up to 50 euro per bed. Some require minimum spending of 20, 30 or 40 euro- they call it consumption, and then the bed is free.

1. Athytos- tiny beach. One somewhat upscale but expensive beach club and one restaurant with sad looking beds requiring 90 euro minimum in consumption. The town itself is up the mountain so unless you have a car it’s a long climb up. The town is very cute with bunch of good seafood restaurants with a view on the upper promenade with gorgeous sea view. We ate at Oceanides. Good but not fab. The view makes up for meritocracy.
2. Kalithea – party beach, loud beach clubs with lots of young people.  Style Mykonos Paradise beach but smaller and denser.
3.  Polychrono Beach – This one we liked and stayed for 2 nights in a nice apartment Vatsala right on the beach.  Large beach with hotels and apartments facing the beach. One long promenade with bars and restaurants. No need to climb up the mountain after a long day at the beach.  Right next door is the best restaurant on the stretch with good seafood and nice tables on the beach side.
4. Chanioutis Beach. Nice town but uninteresting beach.  The clubs don’t have restaurants only drinks.
5. Pefkochori Beach – similar setting to Polychrono beach. Promenade and accommodations right on the beach.
6. Chrousso Palouri- the last beach on the east side. Separated from the town, must have a car. Nice beach clubs and the best sand but need to reserve a bad otherwise cannot stay.

7. On the west side of Kassandra we only spent one afternoon on Posseidi, a much smaller than the west side beaches but cheaper as well. 

On our last night on Kassandra we got festival tickets to a concert at Sari Hill located in Sari Resort which is an enormous mega city with numerous sub-resorts, pools, restaurants and buildings. After the concert we swam at their adult only pool at night- highlight of the day.

Sithonia

We said goodbye to Kassandra and drove to Sithonia. On the way stopped to check out Gerakhin beach –waste of time, pathetic narrow strip of a beach, rocky and not organized.

We stopped at Nikki beach, good setting with beach front hotels and bars but this being on Sunday couldn’t get any beach chairs and continued to the other side to Sarti beach. It’s a gem, good accommodations, and good beach clubs and very reasonable consumption. We decided to stay 2 nights at Kostas, nice room with a view, good chairs in his club, 4 euro consumption.

We had two dinners in two different mediocre beach restaurants, watched  Euro football final in café Paris and had after dinner drinks in club/café/bar Casablanca.  They have a good DJ, kind of 70s/80s music.  People spill out into the street and dance the night away to various tunes including Sertaki and Macarena

As a rule of thumb, all the restaurants/taverns in those resort towns, are in good settings near the beach have similar classic Greek menus, the food is unremarkable but the ingredients are fresh, portions are ample and the prices are very reasonable. You can never go wrong with a Greek salad and tsasiki…..

After two days we moved back to the western side of the peninsula back to Nikti. This time we got a hotel room in lovely hotel Marina at the very end of the beach strip and this is where we had dinner, which was pretty good. Especially their roasted eggplant with garlic was amazing.  At night the town was alive and bustling notwithstanding a terrible heat.

Athos

We left Sithonia and drove to the last of the three fingers, Athos.  Athos peninsula is famous for the mountain Athos and numerous monasteries. The majority of the peninsula is an autonomy with separate governance and any kind of females are not allowed in its territory. When I say females, I mean not only women but female animals of any sort domestic or wild except for birds and insects which no monks in the world can control yet. So far the power of prayer didn’t help with that one…

The main town of Athos is Ouranoupoli and it’s a place to take ferries to see the monasteries and the mountain from the sea. The town is tiny, several restaurants, small hotels and apartments for rent, a small port and numerous stores with religious stuff.

We got there around noon and got on a 2.15 pm ferry for a 3 hour sail. The sail was lovely, the scenery beautiful and the main thing at this point was a breeze which allowed us to escape the unbearable heat wave for the next 3 hours.

Immediately after the ferry we left the three fingers and moved north east to the mainland towards Olympiada.  We spend the night north of Stavros, in the only decently priced accommodations for the night, a newly built and modern Hotel Cynthia. The area itself is a real village with not much to do with a couple of adequate beach front restaurants.

Next day was very long and tiring and record hot at 104 degrees (Fahrenheit). After a quick coffee and a Bougatsa, a typical Greek breakfast pastry filled with salty feta cheese (interestingly enough tastes just like  a Turkish borekas 🙂 ), we attempted to visit the ancient city of Stagira, a birth place of Aristotle and alleged a place of his burial. We did venture inside up to the grave site but had to turn around back to the car not just because we were too hot but also they were closing the site due to extreme heat. This was actually a blessing because I couldn’t imagine continuing to see the rest.

From there were drove to Varvara Waterfalls, a hidden gem about 30 mins west and worth the drive. The last 5 kms were on an unpaved road but not too bad and the last 200 meters on foot. The cool waters of the waterfall were amazing!! And we lingered there cooling off for about an hour.

From there we drove to Kavala, about one and a half hours north east. Kavala was a disappointment but I probably didn’t give it the due chance because of the heat. Kavala is described as the most “Turkish” city since it was under the Ottoman rule for a long time and has many elements and residuals of Turkish, Ottoman and Islamic rule. When we got there in the early afternoon the city was either abandoned or asleep for a siesta. The heat was unbearable and we decided to take the last 6.30 pm ferry to Thassos Island. We did have some problem finding the ferry info: there was nothing on internet, the tourist information office was closed and there were no tourist agencies that are usually crowding around the ports and the marinas. Finally after making some calls we got the information and went to the air conditioned port to wait for the ferry. The ride took 75 pleasant minutes. For me actually any ride on the water is pleasant.

Thassos Island

We spent 4 days/nights on this lovely island making an entire loop.

Thassos Town – Upon arriving on the island we drove to Thassos town, about 15 kms west of the port and found a cute small hotel and beach club The Captain on the outskirts of small but very vibrant town. We ended this very long and very tiring day in Gefstiko, another decent but overhyped place.

Skala Potama, known as the Golden Beach- stayed in lovely Kamelia hotel and had dinner at nearby Krambousa restaurant with a menu identical to all other beachfront restaurants.

Potos, small but very vibrant resort town – stayed 2 nights in Piatsa Michalis, basic but right on the beach place.   Potos has the loudest late night clubs. The second evening we deviated from the seafood beach restaurants and gladly consumed some grilled chicken inland.

On the 5^th day we left early to check out Limenaria but didn’t really liked it so we hurried back to the ferry and left the island for our next adventures.