Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, is emerging as a cultural and gastronomic hotspot. Susan Low digs deep into the backstory for a taste of the city’s past and present, and discovers a place to put right at the top of your must-visit list

SECOND TO NONE, CLOCKWISE FROM THIS PICTURE Agios Pavlos church looks over the busy port; Modiano and Kapani markets may seem a bit old world, but the creativity and zest for life is evident in the street art, food (Thermaikos Garden) and craft brews (Dore Zithos)

To call Thessaloniki Greece’s second city is to damn it with faint praise. It may not inspire instant awe like Venice or Cape Town, but once I got to know it I was hooked. It has an astounding number of restaurants and bars, a vibrant music scene, and a 2,300-year-plus history on proud display. It’s a pleasant surprise to be gazing upon dazzlingly ornate Byzantine churches and sober Roman ruins among the everyday trappings of a modern European city. Since the 2008 financial crisis, Greece has struggled economically. Away from the brushed-up tourist centres and swanky shopping hotspots of Tsimiski, Thessaloniki’s main shopping street, the number of derelict, graffiti-covered shopfronts hints at hard times.

Yet this city has been faced with hardships and overcome them before. After being devastated in 1917 by the Great Fire, Thessaloniki rose from the ashes with a grand urban design from French architect Ernest Hébrard, all wide boulevards and open public spaces.

Greek novelist Yorgos Ioannou called Thessaloniki ‘the capital of refugees’, and it remains a place for many of those caught up in Europe’s current refugee crisis. Making room for newcomers has made the city Greece’s gastronomic capital – and you can taste its layered history.

GET YOUR BEARINGS

Thessaloniki owes much of its historic wealth – and current character – to its strategically positioned port, so this is a fitting place to work out the lie of the land. We took an early evening stroll out to Kitchen Bar (facebook.com/ KitchenBarGr), at the end of the jetty, ordered a cool glass of assyrtiko wine and gazed across the Thermaic Gulf; on a clear day, apparently, you can see Mount Olympus. I put on my sunglasses to volta (promenade) the length of the seafront along Nikis Avenue, stopping at one of the many bars that are strung along the stretch like pearls, all the way to the iconic White Tower, built in the 15th century and now housing the Museum of Byzantine Culture.