When it comes to Jewish surnames, spelling and pronunciation can make strange bedfellows. When the curator at the tobacco museum in Kavala explains that one of the key figures in the Greek coastal city’s once-thriving industry was a man called Pierre “Hershogg”, the penny only drops when I ask her to write it out. It’s spelt Herzog. “Like the former president of Israel?” I wonder aloud.
“Well, yes, he was Jewish,” she agrees. Any relation? No one seems to know.
Kavala from the skies
Even if he was, Pierre Herzog has no need for borrowed glory since this Hungarian-born banker-turned-tobacco trader is the person behind a stand-out piece of architecture in Kavala: a miniature Hungarian-style castle with striking arches, apses, crenellated towers and huge gates.
Built in the 1890s to house Herzog’s home and offices, today it is Kavala’s town hall having been bought by the municipality in 1937. Amusingly, another Jewish tobacco trader, Adolph Wix von Zsolnay, decided to build his house right next door. Keeping up with the “Hershhoggs”, Wix von Zsolnay’s building is equally impressive. The two buildings soar above the city’s otherwise low-rise skyline. Symbols of bygone Jewish success and ambition, I guess.
The writer in Kavala
Kavala itself is somewhat under the radar for British visitors to Greece, and I don’t quite understand why. Known as the Blue City, it was built in amphitheatre-style along a curved strip of the northern Aegean, an attraction in itself, surely? Yet aside from my husband, Martin, I don’t hear another British voice throughout our trip.
One reason for this could be the limited number of flights from the UK to Kavala airport (one a week from our native Manchester and a couple from London). But it’s not much of an inconvenience to fly to Thessaloniki, which is around two hours away, a city that is itself soaked in Jewish history.
In fact, we begin our trip to Greece by staying in the city for a couple of days, checking into the Electra Palace, an elegant hotel (electrahotels.gr) that looks down on the main square and which, from its seventh-floor restaurant, offers a bird’s eye view of the town. We take a five minute-walk from the hotel to the city’s Jewish museum to find out more about Kavala’s Jewish community, but sadly only a fragment of a gravestone, shaped like a Magen David, offers any clue.
So once we are in Kavala, an ambling hour-and-a-half’s drive from Thessaloniki, we go on our own Jewish quest.
The place is quite compact and clearly divided between the so-called new town by the sea and the old town of Panagia, which squeezes 2,500 years of history into cobbled streets lined with bars and shops arranged around a soaring acropolis. At the top of the hill is a 15th-century fortress owned at various points by the empires including the Byzantines, Ottomans, Lombards and Franks. It’s quite a trek to reach the summit but this is about the journey not the race. So we stop along the way at Boulangerie boutique for some kurabie – the shortbread-style cookies for which Kavala is famous – to give us strength before completing the climb. Pink-faced, out of breath and desperate for the loo (having drunk water in excess for fear of dehydration) all is forgiven as we get a full sweeping view of Kavala’s croissant-shaped city sprawl.
There are lots of places to stay in Kavala, but we plump for the Lucy hotel (www.lucyhotel.gr) around 1.2 miles from the centre – not only for its quiet beachside location but because in the evening we enjoy taking the 30-minute walk into town to burn off calories (don’t ask how many there are in those glasses of ouzo) before enjoying tavern life in after-hours Kavala. As for the town’s tobacco connection, it is Kavala’s climate and soil that made it into the most important tobacco-processing city in the region. By 1905 it had become the main supplier to the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul. I learnt this in the tobacco museum where Mr Pierre Herzog’s contribution to the industry is relayed in some detail. Even for a non-smoker like me it’s hard not to be intoxicated by the richly woody scent of tobacco leaves as you trail around the exhibition.
Jewish life in Kavala came to an tragic end in the Second World War. On March 4, 1943 the city was surrounded by Bulgarian soldiers and 1,484 Jews were rounded up and forced into one of the tobacco warehouses. From there they were transported to Bulgaria and on to the gas chambers of Poland.
There were no survivors.
Today the murder of Kavala’s Jewish community is commemorated on a discreet black marble moment. Unless you know where to look, it is easy to walk past it. (Our wonderful tour guide showed us it). And yet this modest piece of masonry has been one of the most contentious monuments in Greece. The City Council of Kavala initially cancelled the dedication ceremony because of opposition to having a Magen David carved into the stone. After protests, including from the Greek secretary general of religious affairs, the municipality relented, and the monument was unveiled on June 7, 2015. Finding it standing unobtrusively on a street corner is sobering.
Theologos village on the island of Thassos
One of the reasons Brits do fly to Kavala is because it is the easiest way to connect with the island of Thassos, a half-hour ride across the bay, and one of Greece’s less-commercialised islands. We decide to take a look for ourselves, and the very first thing we notice as the boat tacks across the Aegean is how vividly green the islands looks on the horizon, set against the lap of the blue and a cornflower sky.
We book into the Blue Dream Palace hotel (dhotels.gr/bluedreampalace-hotel-thasos) intending to do little more than enjoy its gorgeous beach. But the draw of the countryside is too much and in the late afternoon we hire bikes and head into the mountains. I’m married to a MAMIL (middle-aged man in Lycra) but I cheat on an electric one. Another day we take the car to the mountain village of Theologus whose narrow alleyways and beautiful stone-roof houses are matched in charm by small shops selling local produce such as olive oil and honey. And if you like ceramics, a visit to Costis’s little pottery workshop, founded by his grandfather in 1912, is a must.
Costis in his pottery workshop
As mass tourism to Greece continues to focus on the likes of Mykonos and Santorini, a trip to the island and mainland combo of Kavala and Thassos is proof you can still find the unspoilt and authentic.
On our journey home the duty-free trolley passes by selling multipacks of cigarettes. We are non-smokers so it holds no attraction. But the woody smell of Kavala’s tobacco museum and the memories of Pierre Herzog with his love of “shprawnsy” architecture are certainly worth lighting up for.
The trip was organised through www.marketinggreece.com
Tui flys directly to Kavala from Manchester and London;
www.electrahotels.gr
