Before my trip I was most worried about making the bus trip from Istanbul to Thessaloniki (Salonica), Greece. I did manage to catch the bus. However, the journey was complicated by the visa problems experienced by the Turkish bus passengers trying to enter Greece, and the non-Turkish passengers ended up spending an anxious several hours waiting at a cafe at the Greece-Turkey border while the Greek border officials decided whether to let the Turks in. We arrived in Thessaloniki at around 1 a.m. in the morning.

Since my train from Thessaloniki to Athens left early the next morning, I was only able to spend a few hours in Thessaloniki. This is the Arch of Galerius, one of several Roman ruins in the city, which used to serve as the major port along the Roman Via Egnatia, from the Albanian coast to Constantinople.

[ Next page ]