We turned off the highway and the local road leads us across the marshland that hints at the delta of the two-named river. New Bulgarians call it Mesta in its more than 100 kilometers, and the Greeks call it Nestos in an approximately equally long stretch through their country. The rain that has been pouring for half an hour puts a question mark over our dream of the eternal sun of Greece. The rain stops before our arrival in the port of Keramoti. That town is still located in the Macedonian part of Greece, and beyond the nearby Nestos delta, Thrace begins. That is why this part of the Aegean Sea is called the Thracian Sea.
The ferry immediately swallows the entire bus. On the deck of a huge cargo ship, we doze with the engine humming as we approach our destination – Limenas, the capital of the island of Thassos. We look forward to the coast that we see through the window, but next to it the ferry sails indifferently on, because it is the uninhabited island of Tasopula, which is located between the mainland and Thassos. The closer we are to Limenas, the nicer the weather. The morning sun breaks free from the clouds that remain stuck to the Greek mainland. The port in Limenas welcomes us as tourist agencies promise it - bathed in light, under green hills.
An ancient writer compared those hills to the back of a donkey. Since those times, this animal has been a trademark of the island, so it is often represented as the main character on magnets. At the moment of disembarkation, we already forgive ourselves for the decision to arrive on an overcrowded night bus from Serbia, in which a woman from Vranje was laughing to herself until morning as if on ecstasy.
It didn't matter now. A villa with a swimming pool in the center of the town could receive us right away, because we are the first guests this season. And we are already walking in Limenas. Right next to us is the Church of St. Nicholas, which will wake us up with its bells for the next ten days.
Built in 835 AD, it is located on the ruins of an early Christian church. The dome is covered with hagiographies, and the date 1861, when the frescoes were created, is engraved on the rim. It is one of the oldest churches on Thassos. I love the stone churches near the sea that remind us that Christianity is the fruit of the Mediterranean civilization. And this church is just like that.
Where to go for coffee?
On the promenade, he invites us with a garden in the shade Botzi Music Café. A heavenly image for all continental yearnings - light jazz, smiling staff, a view of the sea that is already sparkling from the abundance of spilled light, and instead of the horizon - the vague line of the Greek mainland.
We are ten kilometers away from it, but it's as if, arriving at Thassos, we stepped into another world. I've experienced it before. Solta is not the same as the Dalmatian mainland, Sicily is not the same as Italy. Not to mention Crete. The Mediterranean islands are worlds unto themselves. And so is Thassos.
The following days will show that there are several addresses for cappuccino lovers. The first one is already at the very beginning of the pedestrianized 18. Oktober Street – the main lifeblood of this town. Black coffee hall - a small place on the corner - for its coffee specialties, it requires five euros each. A few steps away, in the city's most beautiful restaurant garden belonging to a fancy hotel with a sonorous name A for Art Design Hotel, a lover of black fragrant beans will get similar quality for a similar amount.
However, a few hundred meters away in a side street there is a real find - a place that offers stairs with cushions as places to sit. The cafe is called Kapheódentro.
The price of a large cappuccino is two times lower than in fancy bars, and the quality is the same. The rule that generally applies to travel is shown extremely clearly here - those who don't ask will pay twice.
Palimpsest Thassos
The ancient city of Thassos - today's Limenas - was founded as a Greek colony at the beginning of the 7th century BC. Less than a century later, the city and the island become an important point on the map of the Greek world. It is estimated that between 60 and 80 thousand people lived on the island twenty-five centuries ago, and the city itself had about twenty thousand inhabitants.
A resting place at the crossroads of sea routes, with an abundance of drinking water and with first-class marble extracted from the mountain quarries, a gold mine, the city flourished.
Traces of former importance can be seen everywhere. First of all, the former main square, the commercial, administrative and religious heart of the city, the ancient agora, is located close to the coast and the Old Port.
Nearby is an archaeological museum that preserves the remains of ancient heritage. But it is not only the official remains, marked with boards in English, that testify to the former urban structure and pulsating life. Fascinating stone blocks from that period are also built into borders and fences, in the foundations of houses. Some of these artifacts are silent and alone in remote streets, in the middle of olive groves. Limenas is like the upper layer of a palimpsest inscribed over a two-meter-thick rubble stone, under which ancient Greek greatness sleeps.
In the first centuries of the first millennium, the Romans, as the new masters, restored the importance that had begun to fade to the city and the island. At the end of the Roman era, pirate attacks, invasions by Vandals, Avars and Bulgars pushed the population into the mountain settlements. Christianization also took its toll – pagan temples were demolished or left to the ravages of time. But early Christian basilicas were built with the materials of ancient buildings. They were also destroyed by various robbers. Byzantine rule lasted, with a brief interruption of Venetian rule, until the arrival of the Turks in the middle of the 15th century. The city was abandoned until the 19th century, when the inhabitants from the hilly areas moved down to the coast again.
At the beach
And on the coast of the town of Limenas, you can take the promenade by the sea, along the Old Port, to the city beach in just a few minutes. Tourist guides, as well as enthusiastic tourists on the Internet, praise Thassos for its beaches and recommend visiting the island. Taught by the example of Skiathos - we lost a day of rest to visit the most beautiful beach on the island, which actually looked like a tourist barracks with an expensive entrance fee - we stayed on the city beach and did not regret it. Fish of all sizes kept us company in the clear water.
There was no crowd, and the decibels were kept within reasonable limits, if we except for a few of our women who shouted recipes for this or that from one end of the beach to the other.
Some of the beach bar owners are still sawing and hammering. The beginning of June is not yet the season for them. They don't feel like it. It has advantages. You don't take deckchairs. You find shade and stretch out in the sand.
We tried the top rated beach bar once – their sunbeds were really comfortable, but the condition was that you had to consume food and drinks for 20 euros. At the same time, the breakfast was below average. The owner mentioned to us that in the full season, he will suspend that rule, a deck chair will cost ten euros per head. Ate, didn't eat.
The view from the rock
Once we walked to the end of Gradska plaža and stepped through the gate of an exceptional bar on the sea, Carnagio Beach Bar. They built a terrace on the cliff above the sea. If you climb the stairs next to the bar to the rock on which the church is dedicated to the holy apostles - it was built on the site of a much older church and an even older ancient sanctuary - it will probably be the most beautiful view of the coast and the sea in Limenas.
While the Ferry Pier and the Old Port, along with the beach, are sheltered from the wind, on the other side of the ridge where the church is, the waves crash wildly against the rocks. Here it becomes clear why Limenas, leaning against the slopes of the mountain, sheltered on both sides, is a natural peaceful port.
We took the opportunity to spend the evening sipping draft beer – and that comes at a fat price, and watching the line between sea and sky disappear in the ink of the coming night.
The microclimate is also one of the advantages of this place. While black clouds used to accumulate on the mainland of Greek Macedonia and Thrace, which the rain curtain would then merge with the sea, in Limenas people would lie carefree on the beach. The clouds were driven by the wind, hanging them on the Ipsario massif on the island or blowing them along the Greek coast. Thus, the hills above Limenas could be covered in clouds and fog, above Keramoti on land everything would be black, and in Limenas the sun burns mercilessly all day.
Island taverns
Limenas is densely studded with taverns and restaurants above average. For some you have to know where they are because they are not by the sea. But the largest number of them are located along the coast - from Trajektna to Stara luka. By studying reviews on the Internet, we came to the conclusion that some of the most charming bars are just tourist traps. We tried several taverns during our stay. Although they are Karas or a restaurant with organic food Muses in the Ferry Port are excellent, and they are not far behind Milos i Ambrosia in the center, the most impressive was the tavern Twins. If you walk a hundred steps from the promenade, along Dimitriadu Street, uphill, you will come across a well-kept garden. This tavern cannot offer a sea view. But that's why everything else is better than others.
It should be noted that in Limenas, in addition to our dear Greek dishes and drinks, we discovered two appetizers that can rarely be found on the mainland. And both are not marine. It's about smoked mackerel. Who would have thought that on a Greek island freshwater fish would be the champion of taste. Next to it, there are dried olives from Thassos - they are not harvested until they have dried on the tree themselves. Trumba is a variety that, according to experts, is actually taken daily as a natural remedy. Some of the island's olive trees are two and a half millennia old, so it makes sense that they know something about longevity.
House wines, mostly white, have a superior taste compared to Greek bottled wines. And the price is unbeatable - between 10 and 14 euros per liter. The history of the island was different. Red wine from Thassos was highly valued in ancient times - it was considered to be the best wine next to the wine from Chios. Aristophanes praised it for its beautiful fragrance, Virgil celebrated the wine of Thassos from the dark grape, and Plutarch left a record that it was the luxurious drink of courtesans and kings. Since at the beginning of the last century, the invasion of the sushi bug, imported from North America, destroyed most of the European vineyards, the same thing happened to the vine plantings here. So, drinking wine in Thassos, we are not actually admiring the same grape that the ancient writers praised.
Parting
Much more could be said about Limenas. In essence, it is a somewhat ordinary Greek town in an unusual place, where three millennia of history slumber beneath the everyday scenes. Before leaving, try the best Greek burek - bugaca - at Sakis. Three euros per piece. Gyros are between four and five euros. After the corona, Greece is no longer a place for cheap vacations.
Large island seagulls fly behind the ferry that takes us back to the mainland.
I take another look at Limenas, which shrinks behind the wake of the ship in the sea to the size of a model. Above it are hills and mountain peaks.
I remember reading that Limenas was created when Telesicles, ruler of the Cycladic island of Paros, was ordered by the Greek oracle Delphi to inhabit the "misty-dark island" and found a city. He did it almost 27 centuries ago. In the second wave of colonizers was also his son, conceived from a relationship with a slave girl, the soldier and poet Archilochus. A record of his arrival on Thassos has been preserved: "The whole misery of Greece has arrived with us on Thassos; sea hazards, shipwrecks; but this is the promised land; an island like a donkey's back, covered with wild forests; life fighting with Thracian dogs to take over the land; bad Thassos".
So, the beginning was not promising. But the following millennia denied the poet. Limenas and his island Thassos died and were resurrected many times. We spent ten days of our lives on the back of that donkey of Archilochus, which I now caress with my eyes while the sun is already leaning towards the White Sea. When it starts drowning again in a ruddy fire, we will already be far away, in the Greek north.
Bonus video:
