Last Day in Thessaloniki: Tobacco Museum

 

On Thursday, August 25th

All of us woke up to a beautiful day in Thessaloniki. We went downstairs to have a nice delicious breakfast. Personally, I had some eggs and bacon with 2 pieces of toast. 

At 9am everyone loaded into the bus for a 2-hour ride to Kavala. 

After most of the time on the bus had passed, we started passing through the town of Kavala, which was founded in the 7th Century BC. It is located in the northern central part of Greece and it used to be called The City Of Christ. In the 14th Century, everyone decided that it was better to call it Kavala. This town is known for its tourism, fishing, oil, and tobacco businesses. 

The first place we visited was the Archeological Tobacco museum in Kavala. One interesting fact I learned was that during the 15th Century, Christopher Columbus tried Tobacco for the first time and loved it because it made him feel good about himself and everything around him. Once people saw him doing this, tobacco instantly became popular around Europe. I found this really interesting because everyone believed that tobacco could reduce the amount of pain and help dress wounds.  

Another cool concept that I found really interesting is during harvest season in July, the farmers can only cut the leaves down one by one otherwise they would risk killing the whole plant. They must take all the individual leaves and tie them to a rope to dry. Then they take the leaves and put them into a cleaning machine that allows all dust on the leaves to fall to the bottom. Lastly, they put the leaves into a packer to be packaged and shipped off to their next destination. 

Also, I learned that Tuberculosis was a very common disease during the time because people who worked in the tobacco factories would breathe in dust constantly from plants. There were no air conditioning units at the time to filter clean air which meant the same dusty air was just constantly circulating through the windows. 

After the tour of the museum, we hung out in Kavala for one more hour to have some lunch. I ended up going to a small gyro place with extremely good food for a great price. I ordered a gyro platter with gyro meat, french fries, and tzatziki sauce which was outstandingly delicious. After, everyone met up in the square and we headed back to the bus for the 2-hour bus ride back to Thessaloniki. 

For the rest of the day, we didn't really do much except packing our luggage and going to dinner. We went to a really good pizza place called Basilico. Personally, I ended up getting the most amazing and delicious plate of pasta Bolognese. The restaurant had a really beautiful view of the sunset on the water. I think this was the best way to wrap up all of our time in Greece together.