Thessaloniki
Writing

Serious Greeks will tell you Thessaloniki is the real city. They are not wrong.

The second city · Byzantine walls · The best food in Greece

Thessaloniki is Greece's second city and has a chip on its shoulder about Athens that produces in it exactly the qualities that Athens lacks — a genuine street culture, a food culture of serious ambition, an arts scene that does not perform itself for tourists because there are not enough tourists to perform for. The Byzantine walls and White Tower sit alongside post-industrial waterfronts and neighbourhood tavernas. Thessaloniki is a city that knows its own worth and does not need you to confirm it.

"In the fish market in Thessaloniki at six in the morning the serious business of the day was already done. The fishermen had arrived. The taverna owners had bought. The fish were on ice. Everyone else was still asleep, which is how the serious business of any city gets done."

Tumbleweed Words — Thessaloniki

The Thessaloniki writing is concerned with the quality of the ordinary — the neighbourhood life, the morning coffee at the same kafeneio, the fish market at six am, the long evenings that begin with ouzo and do not have a defined endpoint. Flash fiction from cities that have not been smoothed by mass tourism has a texture that cities like Barcelona or Prague no longer quite offer. Thessaloniki still has roughness. The writing uses it.

David — Tumbleweed Words Flash fiction and poetry written on trains, in hostels, and in city streets. Published in Litro, Adelaide Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and The Dundee Anthology. Pushcart-nominated. Five years on Substack.