My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
Today is Duke’s birthday!🎂🎉 So it was nice that we woke up this morning to sun.
Before we headed to Corfu, where we are tonight, we drove in the other direction to a viewpoint overlooking. Vikos Gorge. Lots of people do raft trips through the gorge. We saw at least 5 trailers with rafts on them going towards the put in point.
We stopped at a couple more overlooks as we drove west. Corfu is on the west coast of Greece. So we have crossed Greece from east to west.
This morning we had a wonderful breakfast feast at Palea Poli in Naousa.
After breakfast, even though it was raining, we went out for a walk.
When we got back to the hotel we checked out and started our drive to Aristi. I think it would have been a beautiful drive through the mountains but unfortunately it was rainy and foggy the whole way. The drive took us about four hours.
We have been very lucky with the weather on this trip. They do get snow in this area so a bit of rain is ok! It stopped raining and the clouds lifted a bit as we got close to Aristi. We checked in and then went for a walk.
We ate dinner in a the hotel restaurant.
When we got back to the room Duke started a fire in the fireplace.
Today we rented a car and left Thessaloniki. But first we went looking for the bus company (Simonides) that we will use to leave Greece next week. Their website doesn’t work so we wanted to buy the tickets in person. The first and closest office we walked to told us we had to go to their office at the train station to buy tickets. So we walked there and bought our tickets.
The other good thing that happened this morning is that Duke got a phone call saying his suitcase had arrived in Thessaloniki ! Hallelujah! we asked them to hold the suitcase at the airport because that was where we would pick up the rental car.
After buying our ticket at the train station it was getting close to check out time at our hotel and the hotel was almost 2 miles away. So we got a cab back to the hotel, finished packing, checked out and then got another cab to the airport.
At the airport Duke got his bag and we took the shuttle to the rental car office.
We drove about two hours west from Thessaloniki to Naousa, in the mountains where we are staying at a lovely hotel called Palea Poli Deluxe Boutique Hotel.
Palea Poli Hotel is a lovely cozy place. It is raining outside. We rested and relaxed and had dinner next to the fireplace.
Today was a lovely rest day. We went for a long walk around Thessaloniki.
A year ago today was the worst train crash in Greek History. 57 people were killed. There were big demonstrations going on today protesting Greece’s antiquated train system. We saw a very large police presence including a lot of riot police.
We went into Agia Sophia Church
We stopped to have Greek coffees.
We rested for a while by the White Tower of Thessaloniki.
We had an excellent dinner in the Daios Hotel restaurant,
Swiss Air lost Duke’s suitcase yesterday. They said they would deliver it today but didn’t. We have an AirTag in it so we know it moved from Zurich to Istanbul. Now Swissair says they will deliver it tomorrow. We shall see. Meanwhile I guess we will go shopping tomorrow. We are supposed to pick up our rental car at the airport at 11 am but we may push that back.
This morning we set the alarm for 3:35. Our plane left Barcelona at 6:45. We left the hotel, drove to the airport, returned our car, said goodbye to Brian and Jo Ann and checked in. From Barcelona we flew to Zurich.
We had about $20 worth of Swiss Francs left over from our last trip to Switzerland. That almost covered our breakfast in Zurich.
We arrived In Thessaloniki, Greece around 1:30. Thessaloniki is an hour ahead of Barcelona. We were in Thessaloniki in 2023. We have fond memories of the hotel we stayed at last time we were in Thessaloniki so we stayed at Hotel Daios again.
Dukes bag somehow didn’t make the connection in Zurich. We filed a lost bag report and have received an email that it will be delivered to our hotel tomorrow.
We caught a taxi to the hotel, checked in and took naps.
Later someone from the hotel rang the bell to our room and delivered sparkling wine to welcome us!
For dinner we went to a nearby Greek tapas restaurant, Deka Trapezia. We shared three small plates and a desert, and of course ouzo. The flavors were amazing. It was wonderful.
Marion's Blog 