ASIANOVERLAND.NET WINTER EUROPEAN DAY 26/199: ATHENS TO THESSALONIKI, GREECE

6/1/81

Modern landmarks since the establishment of Athens as the capital of the independent Greek state in 1834, include the Hellenic Parliament and the so-called "architectural trilogy of Athens", consisting of the National Library of Greece, and the Academy of Athens. Athens is also home to many museums and cultural institutions, such as the National Archeological Museum, featuring the world's largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities, the Acropolis Museum and the Byzantine and Christian Museum.

We drive north from Athens to the capital of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, also known as Thessalonica, Saloniki or Salonica, the second-largest city in Greece. It is also known as "the co-capital", a reference to its historical status as "co-reigning" city of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, alongside Constantinople.

Thessaloniki is located on the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea.

The city of Thessaloniki was founded in 315 BC by Cassander of Macedon, and was named after his wife Thessalonike, daughter of Philip II of Macedon and sister of Alexander the Great. Alexander's home town.

An important metropolis by the Roman period, Thessaloniki was the second largest and wealthiest city of the Byzantine Empire after Constantinople.

It was conquered by the Ottomans in 1430 and remained an important seaport and multi-ethnic metropolis during nearly five centuries of Turkish rule. It passed from the Ottoman Empire to Greece on 8 November 1912.

It is home to numerous Byzantine monuments, and the city's main university, Aristotle University, is the largest in Greece and the Balkans

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