Kavala

Kavala is mainland northern Greece, population 57000. We arrived at 12:30 on Saturday Oct 18th. There is a castle overlooking the town. Weather was overcast and around 20C. At 1:30pm went off on a bus tour to Xanthi about 50km away. We were on grey bus #12. Our tour guide, Chryssa was a young lady from the area who was very knowledgeable about the history of this part of Greece. The route we took followed the old Roman road going east with the mountains on our left and flat down to the river delta on our right. During the trip noticed many areas set up with solar panels in the fields. Tobacco was a big industry in this part of Greece but that has slowly died out and now mining is the main industry, particularly marble. Just before reaching Xanthi we stopped at the Nestos river for a 30 minute viewing. The river is the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace where we were. Continued on to Xanthi and commenced our walking tour around 3pm. The population is around 76000, many of whom are students. We started in the modern square with the clock tower, then proceeded towards the old part of town. We spent about 2 hours walking through the older streets visiting the shops, bars & restaurants, many populated by younger people. Stopped at several Byzantine churches and the basilica. We were also escorted by several stray dogs which seemed very friendly. These have all been tagged and microchipped as there is a potential issue with rabies here. Of interest here were the olive, pomegranate and persimmon trees. At 5pm we boarded our bus for a short trip to a local taverna where we were served a late lunch of typical Greek food selection. At 6pm we boarded our bus and headed back to Kavala where we arrived just before 7pm.