Day 20 - 08/07/23

 Woke up bright and early this morning and after hurriedly cleaning up the flat, we left on our way to the coach station. After using up the rest of my Bulgarian currency to buy snacks, we made our way on to the coach. Luckily I was sat right at the front, so I had a good amount of leg room. Unfortunately I couldn’t sleep, as the coach driver was talking very loudly on the phone the whole journey.

After making our way to the Greek border, us and a few others had our passports taken from us, and we had to spend the next 15 minutes waiting for them to check them. They took so long that the coach driver went over to the desk and gave them a piece of his mind.

The coach was surprisingly speedy, and before we knew it we had arrived in our final destination, Thessaloniki. We couldn’t figure out how the public transport or taxis worked, so we decided to brave the 40 minute walk with our suitcases from the coach station to our airbnb. What we didn’t anticipate was that the entire walk was steeply uphill, so after a gruelling journey we arrived, drenched in sweat. I lucked out and am sleeping in this double bed room, which marks only the 3rd time since 7th June that I’ve slept in a room on my own. We had a big sleep and prepared for the night ahead.

We made the walk back into the city centre, which goes a lot quicker when you’re walking downhill without suitcases. The woman who runs the AirBnb gave us a recommendation for dinner, and after accidentally going to the wrong place and ordering a few drinks out of politeness, we arrived at the actual dinner location. The food was fantastic, probably the best I’ve eaten so far, as I had the chicken with gnocchi in this delicious creamy sauce. The prices are a bit of a shock after spending the last fortnight in Eastern Europe though, but it was definitely worth it.

After this we went to another bar, which was extremely empty but still very cool. For some reason they had clips from the film Trainspotting playing on repeat on a projector. It was so empty that nobody even bothered working at the bar, the staff just sat outside drinking until someone came along. I guess Thessaloniki isn’t really known for its nightlife. Still feeling full from our big meal, we got a taxi home and I enjoyed a nice sleep in my own room.