Pulling into the station at 1pm I'm feeling a bit ragged and looking forward to a wash and fresh clothes. There are no signs of life at the hostel aside one rucksack and a note saying leave your things office open at 7pm. It seems pleasant enough, the rooms are basic but the balcony has a couple of chairs and overlooks the street. I cannot find the showers but there are a couple of locked rooms. For the time being the sink and a quick splash of water on the face will have to suffice. Returning from a stroll around the harbour, munching on apples and bananas, the office is now open and a old-man who looks a bit like Danny De-Vito's Penguin collects 13 euros from me.
Showers? Downstairs in the basement, I need a key or the door but please can i return it, no problem... and the award for worst wash facilities for travellers 2007 goes to... Thessaloniki Youth Hostel! You open the wrought-iron bar gate removing the heavy, rusted padlock, and descend the precarious steps into a dimly lit dungeon with four light switches on the wall, one reads 'boys' which I flip. A yellowish light flickers on to reveal rotting ceilings, pipes covered in blue-green mould, and a stream of slime ooze running into an open drain. A moth is beating its brains out against the dust-clad window in a bid for freedom. Prison showers does not do it justice. Grit teeth, this is an experience, turning the 'hot' tap nothing happens... then a jet of ice-cold water pierces my scalp and paralyses me for seconds before the necessary expletives. Forget this, it's bathroom gymnastics with the sink for me!Taverna Touts
At the crossroads they gather, prowling predators, smoother-tongued than Kaa, experts in persuasion, enticing hungry and non-hungry alike into their restaurants. The smooth operator firmly fixed in the centre displaying his debonair credentials with 3/4 length camel jacket, the energetic semaphorist running around signalling to all manner of people near and far, the young pretender calmly showing a Roger Moore-esque ability to beckon with only head and eyebrow movements, and the slick leather-jacketed man moving in whenever a back is turned to redirect in his favour. Unwittingly walking into the centre i'm surrounded by four, a hand on the elbow beckons one way, a voice calls to come the other way, a horse-trading game begins, 'best food here, good prices', 'good prices and live music here', 'live music and free drinks here'. Happily disorientated somehow it ends with me sitting under a plastic canopy on cobbled streets, serenaded by an accomplished guitarists duo, eating delicious souvlaki and crepes and watching as the game continues...
At the crossroads they gather, prowling predators, smoother-tongued than Kaa, experts in persuasion, enticing hungry and non-hungry alike into their restaurants. The smooth operator firmly fixed in the centre displaying his debonair credentials with 3/4 length camel jacket, the energetic semaphorist running around signalling to all manner of people near and far, the young pretender calmly showing a Roger Moore-esque ability to beckon with only head and eyebrow movements, and the slick leather-jacketed man moving in whenever a back is turned to redirect in his favour. Unwittingly walking into the centre i'm surrounded by four, a hand on the elbow beckons one way, a voice calls to come the other way, a horse-trading game begins, 'best food here, good prices', 'good prices and live music here', 'live music and free drinks here'. Happily disorientated somehow it ends with me sitting under a plastic canopy on cobbled streets, serenaded by an accomplished guitarists duo, eating delicious souvlaki and crepes and watching as the game continues...
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