From antiquity to creativity

2015-12-28  Source: China Daily

Thessaloniki's massive installation of metal mesh umbrellas is an icon of the city's identity as a hive of creativity

Naked bike rides. A pride parade. A "love your garbage" campaign.

Antiquity's birthplace has sired a progressive youth movement.

While Athens often tops tourism-marquee listings, Greece's bohemian bastion, Thessaloniki, is the country's cultural capital.

It's sometimes called Greece's answer to Seattle－although the nude cycling and sheer hipster volume perhaps pushes it more toward Portland, as far as US West Coast analogies go.

Either way, it has won such accolades as a National Geographic listing for "one of the best places to visit worldwide" in 2013 and a listing as Europe's Youth Capital the following year.

Its multiethnic history since its 315 BC founding and current student population of 150,000 have made the cradle of classicalism a crib of cosmopolitanism and incubator of innovation.

The city is a hive of designers, artists and musicians known for a DIY ethos and contempt for convention.

Architecture collectives, renegade jewelers and cafes where sewing takes precedence over swilling give vim to more standard charms, such as nearly 30 museums, archaeological attractions and sparkling seaside.

It's a hub of contemporary creativity built upon ancient ruins.

Sometimes, literally.

This can be clearly seen through the floor of the Macedonian Museum Of Contemporary Art's coffee shop. Look down, and you'll see the outline of Byzantine burial grounds through the glass floor. Look up and you'll see over 2,000 modern international artworks, including by the likes of Warhol.

Such scenes are common in the city.

Apartment buildings' lobbies also often display ruins and tiled mosaics beneath glass panels that residents totter over on their way home.

Thessaloniki is built in layers－strata of time, of transformation, of thought.

A trendy part of town is the halo of hip boutiques that frame Navarino Square, which encases the crumbs of Galerius' palace from AD 305.

The city's 5-kilometer promenade hosts what are perhaps the city's most iconic landmarks－one archaeological, one avant-garde.

Emblematic of the city's past is the White Tower－an Ottoman prison renamed from the Blood Tower by an inmate who was pardoned rather than beheaded.

Perhaps the most celebrated icon of Thessaloniki as a center of contemporary art is a metal installation of massive mesh umbrellas that once graced Time magazine's cover.

Both the tower and the umbrellas are frequently used as wedding-photo backdrops, and a new trend is for couples to hang locks on the umbrellas to express their devotion. The tower has been an exhibition space since 2008.

The promenade is punctuated with about 20 themed parks, such as the Garden of Noises, where the sea breeze emits eerie sounds as it whooshes through the flora.

The seaside walkway runs parallel to chockablock cafes and bars with outdoor seating, where locals nurse Frappuccinos (the favorite local caffeinated beverage) and sip from wineglasses (the surrounding area is sheathed in vineyards) as they gaze at the waves.

A sea of red-tile roofs can be seen from the Ano Poli, the highest and oldest part of the city.

Its elevation safeguarded its ancient buildings and Byzantine walls from the great fire of 1917, preserving it as an island of the past.

Local lore contends a woman frying fish caused the inferno.

Views from the Upper Town's Trigonio Tower offer panoramas of the town, including most of Thessaloniki's 15 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 13 of which are Byzantine churches that still host services. They stand among thickets of museums, bistros and theaters in the shadow of Mount Olympus－the throne of the ancient gods' king, Zeus.

Also clear from the tower are the ancient, old and new ports. The old dock's warehouses have been repurposed as cultural venues, including those for hosting the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and cinema and photography museums.

The ancient port used during the Maritime Silk Road contributed to Thessaloniki's diversity.

The city has been home to sizable populations of Greeks, Turks, Sephardic Jews, Romans, Franks, Egyptians and Indians through antiquity, Byzantine, Ottoman and modern times.

That's not to mention Nazi occupiers, who shipped most of the city's 56,000 Jews to concentration and labor camps from a rail station slated to become a museum to this history. (About 1,200 Jews remain today, as does one of 12 synagogues.)

The ancient port transported rice, corn and potatoes for Egyptian spices, Chinese silk and French scented oils.

Historical trade with China has created a funny linguistic turn: Greeks have their own version of "It's all Greek to me". Just they replace their demonym with Chinese.

In other words, the Greeks say: "It's all Chinese to me."

The city is now hoping to become a port of call for Chinese.

Searches on Baidu, China's answer to Google, about Greek travel top out at up to 21,000 a day for Santorini, 2,500 for Athens and 1,000 for Crete, municipal tourism officials say.

Thessaloniki averages zero.

The 72-year-old mayor, Yiannis Boutaris, a wine magnate and recovering alcoholic who sports several tattoos (including a lizard crawling up his wrist), earrings and jangles of bracelets－and who, more importantly, leans toward more revolutionary thinking than most youth－tells China Daily he hopes to create a Chinatown for Thessaloniki's roughly 3,000 Chinese residents.

Most arrived about 20 years ago and their families run about 100 wholesale stores.

Perhaps surprisingly, the main lure for Chinese currently seems to be retracing the steps of Jesus' disciple Peter, marking his first foothold in the region that resulted in two books of the New Testament.

It seems that while biblical history may currently appeal to most Chinese visitors, contemporary creativity may create a new charm.