These on location videos are an absolute treasure, As entertaining as it is relaxing to watch.

Fun fact: the excavations for the metro uncovered a lot more. And most of them are accessible to the public from now! An entire station for a fact will basically be a open air museum.

There are 15 monuments in Thessaloniki designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites (Byzantine & Palaio-Christian monuments).

if you look close enough you will see the finished Underground of Thessaloniki

Seeing that church with no lights on really feel like you’re back in that time. I feel like that’s what it would look like back in the day.

Marvellous. But now I want to visit Thessaloniki for myself!

Excellent! Now I need to add one more city to my bucket list.

Great video on a lesser known topic. Thessalonica was an incredibly important city.

Seeing this brought back so many memories of my time studying there! Thank you - one could spend endless hours learning about every inch of that place.

Great video! Have had Thessaloniki on my list for a while now for the byzantine sites alone, I'll definitely keep this video saved! Thanks for uploading!

This is awesome, thanks for showing us around these wonderful places

I’ve learned a lot of the Byzantines through your channel after visiting Turkey this summer. Your videos are great

I lived next to Galarius’ palace for about three months and loved exploring the city. This brings back so many great memories.

Excellent!

4:00 I had to watch this part over because I wasn't paying attention to what Garrett was saying. That lady taking a picture of her two kids was so precious seeing the little boy smile and pose for her.

Thank you for this wonderful and illustrative video, Garrett. It's wonderful to see the history come to life in these ancient cities!

This is so awesome! Bucket list location for sure. I can tell so much research went into this before your trip even began, and I like your adapting and parsing of info based on what you were able to film.

Awesome!

I was just there a few weeks ago! I visited a lot of the city, but wish I had known more about Galerius' palace and arch when I was there. Thanks for sharing

Beautiful and very informative video. May I ask though why you decided not to mention Thessaloniki's Hagia Sophia in a video about byzantine Thessaloniki? If you ask me, it is the most important church of that period this city has.

Thank you so much for that informative video, of a place i could never afford to see.

Great Video

You could have also shown the largely intact walls and perimeter towers of the city

Very interesting

Thanks!

Your videos are super interesting and the presentation is really concise and well informed! However, I think the viewing experience would be improved if you uploaded in 1440p (2k) or 2160p (4k). This would allow us to see the statues and frescos in much greater detail!

Saints Cyril and Methodius, (respectively, born c. 827, Thessalonica, Theme of Thessalonica, Byzantine Empire (now in Greece)-died February 14, 869, Rome; born c. 815, Thessalonica-died April 6, 884, Moravia; feast day for both, February 14 [Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism] or May 11 [Eastern Orthodoxy]), brothers who, for Christianizing the Danubian Slavs and for influencing the religious and cultural development of all Slavic peoples, received the title “the Apostles of the Slavs.” Cyril (originally named Constantine) had missionary experience with the Arabs and had been a professor of philosophy at the patriarchal school in Constantinople when he began to work with his brother Methodius, the abbot of a Greek monastery, for the conversion of the Khazars northeast of the Black Sea in 860. In 862, when Prince Rostislav of Great Moravia asked Constantinople for missionaries, the emperor Michael III and the patriarch Photius named Cyril and Methodius. They started their work among the Slavs in 863, using Slavonic in the liturgy. They translated the Bible into the language later known as Old Church Slavonic (or Old Bulgarian) and invented the Glagolitic alphabet, a Slavic alphabet based on Greek characters that in its final Cyrillic form is still in use as the alphabet for modern Russian and a number of other Slavic languages.

Well, that's my next trip sorted. Did you manage to get to Vergina from there?

Thessaloniki is in the eastern panhandle of Greece...had to look up the location .Named after the sister of Alexander the Great.

Beautiful churches. It's a pity that the modern buildings in the background don't inspire nearly as much awe as their ancient neighbours. Looks like post war suburb of Warsaw.

Thessaloniki is still a hidden touristic gem. Multiple historical buildings, musuems and sights to visit. The vibrant greek jewish community which was suddenly almost completely eliminated during the nazi occupation but still managed to survive. The 100K plus stundent population giving it a very special vibrant taste. A gastronomic paradise where you can taste unique food and patisserrie. Also mount Olympus is very close less than 90 km as well as Pella the same distance where you can visit the Vergina where the tomb of Phillip II lies there. Finally Chalkidiki for amazing beaches. Only bad thing is the terrible public infrastructure, that why the roads are always so busy. A Place to recommend highly!

Truly, the frescos”speak”.

Iconostasis i loved that word❤

Is that the place were the leave the poor cats of the city that they didnt kill? If its not it there is a similar one around in rome

What is ironic is that the Byzantines never considered themselves Byzantines. They held throughout their history that they were Romans.

There are also the Byzantine walls

Makes me wonder f Galerius could visit this city today what would he react to all modern changes... Galerius was one interesting Emperor an had a complicated reign

thess oh low nye kuh😅

Americans: we have this really old church, it was build in 1720 by the ........ Greeks: sigh we have this old random church that was build in 470 CE ....

Very interesting video. Though you have to work on your greek pronounciations. Keep the good work!

What a treasure, unfortunately too much of it was ravaged in Ottoman times

Your on site monolog ability is quie something

Il connait autre chose que les églises ?!!!

Not an ancient fact, of course, but I was really surprised to learn recently that Thessaloniki was the only jewish majority city in Europe from the 16th to 20th century. Did you run into any Jewish architecture while you were there?

How many Greeks today are aware of their heritage from this period?

1st

The surrounding modern architecture, from what looks like, mid-20th century, is unbelievably repulsive 🤢

Why do you speak so fast? Are you trying to rush through every word and sentence?

It’s /thes-sal-oh-NEE-kee/. Learn to pronounce names correctly before you record. If you don’t know this ask any Greek person and practice it until you get it right,

Check out the Thessaloniki walls and the ano poli! It's full of Byzantine monuments!

The pronunciation of Thessaloniki is, according to the Thessalonikians, Thess-a-lo-NEE-kee, accent on the 4th syllable, not the 3rd, as widely supposed (by Garrett and) outside Thessaloniki. Also, primarily because Macedonia is a tourist backwater, and therefore a place people more into history and culture should visit, is pronounced, by EVERYONE who lives there, not Mass-a-DON-ee-ah, but MaKadonia. Yes, the C is pronounced a hard K. This is in part because Greeks don't like the MaKadonians, who are not pure Greek, more part of the Balkans than Greece, and who claim to be the real homeland of both Alexander the Great and his father Philip. Greeks are adamant those royals were Greek, and have gone to war with the MaKadonians over this dispute. For decades, in the UN, Greece insisted the country now known as North Makadonia (with a C, I am only using a K to remind readers it is NOT pronounced Massadonia by the actual MaKadonians). Greece had threatened war with Makadonia if they internationally insisted on calling themselves that until a compromise was reached a few years ago, to call the region around Thessaloniki, within Greece, "Makadonia" and the actual country where Philip's palace site is situated in the capitol of North Makadonia, Skopia, in a monumentally tall series of statuary so high above the palace site you need to fly up to it to make out the images of Philip and Alexander, which the non-Greek MaKadonians insist belong to them. After visiting Skopia and exploring North Makadonia and learning of this controversy there, I went to Thessalon-EE-ki and asked Greeks where Philip's palace was, and where exactly were he and Alexander born? I was never told anything but "We don't know exactly. But it's somewhere in Greece."