Tags
cocktail bars, design, Greece, lighting objects, Mediterranean Sea, thessaloniki, travel, vintage
Ah Greece… what better way to prepare for enduring the long cold winter that spending a weekend in a Greek city with outside temperatures of above 27°, a view of the sea and a local fest?
The city is not a resort itself and don’t expect walking out of your hotel on a sandy beach. It’s a city where people live in apartment buildings, go to work, take the bus, stay in traffic. But aside from this Thessaloniki has that laid back Mediterranean charm you get to discover by walking down the narrow streets and mingling with the local folks in bars and restaurants.
And few other people know how to savour the little things in life as the Greeks do… I loved watching them having morning coffee at a terrace downtown, enjoying their incredible food, walking by the sea or going for drinks in Valaoritou bars.
There are lots of places to go out to and in terms of design the words to describe are eclectic and vintage. Most bars are decorated with those lofty worn out pieces: exposed brick walls, metal bar chairs, industrial lighting objects and retro wall plaques.
I went to such a place on Friday night where aside from amazing food and drinks they had a local DJ entertaining people with electro music. The place itself is a crazy mixture of bistro chic and kitchy elements that bring together a modern hip ambiance: romantic wall clocks and pictures of all sizes and styles, a bicycle hanged somewhere by the roof and a tree growing in the middle of the bar. I imagine an owner that hasn’t yet made up his mind on the style to approach and is reluctant to give up anything so instead he uses every bit of space to fill it up with his eclectic collection.
I was impressed by the lighting they use in interiors. Vintage, of course but quirky and creating a cozy setting especially in cocktail bars.
As for the rest of the city I’ll only show a few photos from my perspective of Thessaloniki, images that warmed up to me while walking around the center.
So enough for the urban-chic-hipster kind of atmosphere, next time I’m in for some proper Greek folk music and breaking some plates!!