On Tuesday (15/9/20) I took the Thessaloniki Water Bus from Nei Epivates to the Port of Thessaloniki. The €5 single fare was well worth it. It’s a pleasant walk from my home to the harbour wall and, at the end of the trip, the walk from the boat to the port gates is also very pleasant as you pass by some upmarket eateries and bars before you hit the busy Victory Avenue (Λεωφόρος Νίκης).
If you fancy yourself as a discerning beer drinker, you can, unfortunately, become a bit of a lager lout in Greece as Heineken, Amstel, Alfa, Mythos and a few others like Vergina are all that’s generally available. Craft brewing, however, is a small but growing sector – maybe to be discussed at a later date. Anyway, to get away from lager I decided to head for The Dubliner, a genuine Irish bar, run by a real Irishman. It’s in Katouni St in the gentrified Ladadika area. Guinness is famous for its stout – a full-bodied black beer – but I decided to try my first pint of Guinness IPA. IPA means India Pale Ale. Originally, this was English beer brewed for the Raj which contained extra hops so that the beer would survive the long voyage from Britain to India. Modern IPAs, therefore, tend to have a ‘hoppier’ taste than other beers. The risk of course is that they can be too hoppy and taste like mouthwash. One example is a Scottish IPA called Jarl, so hoppy that you could drink it to sterilise your colon prior to colorectal surgery. I’m pleased to say Guinness have struck the right balance. It was a lovely pint. Thirst slaked, I followed this with a pint of Guinness. I bade farewell and then did something I had not done in years: walk in a diagonal from one end of the city centre to the other, from the port to the Arch of Galerius (Καμάρα) in Egnatia. It was also pleasing to see that one of my favourite shops, Petrides, in Karolou Diehl is still thriving. Overall, a pleasant morning and afternoon.
Moving from drink to music (intertwined, it has to be said, in Irish music) four band members met again on Sunday afternoon. Surprisingly – since we like to hit the tunes – we stuck rigidly to a previously agreed number of songs from our playlist to sort out the chords and the most suitable keys. By ‘tunes’ I mean jigs, reels, hornpipes etc. In our playlist we have included some song/tune combinations including one massive medley of three songs interspersed with four reels. I think we can give it a go next time.