The Scents of Thessaloniki
A souvenir story
The line was half a block long. Given the hour, my first thought was that this was a bunch of tourists waiting for whatever the Thessaloniki equivalent of an Antico Vinaio panino or a Juno cardamom bun is. But on closer inspection, there didn’t seem to be any food on offer. Peering through the window, I could see an old-fashioned pharmacy-style counter, and behind it, shelves of mysterious metal flasks, each the size of a Stanley cup, and identical except for the numbers on their labels. Most astonishing of all, everyone in the queue seemed to be Greek.
I am not normally a shopper when I travel. Once upon a time, I had this idea that I would grow into the the kind of cosmopolitan citizen of the world who furnishes her home with the artful, well-curated treasures she has picked up from her global wanderings: carpets from Morocco; handcarved end tables from Uzbekistan; bed linens from France, tea pots from Japan. But it turns out that shopping stresses me out, and that I have the interior design sense that God gave a meerkat. Also, I hate to schlep.
So I don’t usually buy souvenirs. But there was something about Thessaloniki that had me reaching for my wallet on several occasions. There was the kilo-bag of pistachios that were also triggered by a line outside the shop (the Thessaloniki equivalent of a Juno cardamom bun? Nuts). There was that guidebook to the city that I mentioned in my last post, and that wonderful set of postcards depicting The Greek Monsters.
Once I had met up with Mary Alice and Max, and we had we giggled our way through a candle shop that sold not only the ornamented but otherwise normal candles that are used in Easter celebrations, but had an entire wall plus a picnic display of ones made to look like lamb chops, turkey legs, and freddo coffees, I totally caved there too. Do not ask me what I plan to do with a candle that looks for all the world like a freshly grilled stick of souvlaki. It did, however, come very nicely wrapped.
I can’t really explain this sudden spree of souvenir buying because, as I also may have mentioned, Thessaloniki was not a city that I was especially keen on remembering. But that evening, when the three of us passed the shop filled with mysterious flasks that I had stumbled on that morning, it was clear I wasn’t done yet.
It was after dark, but the line was even longer than it had been earlier in the day. What could have all those people queuing up?, I wondered. Was there cut-rate Ozempic hiding in those mysterious bottles? Tickets to Oasis’s Wembley show?
We asked a trio of boys waiting in line. They were 17, and the one that answered had braces on his teeth. “Perfume,” he said.
“Really?” I said, gesturing to a queue that stretched around the corner. “All this for perfume?”
“It smells very good,” he said.
It was a balmy Friday night in Greece’s second largest city and teenage boys were lining up to buy perfume because it smelled good. What sorcery was this?
I did not need perfume, and I definitely did not want to wait in that line. But the sight of all those eager customers made me think that the scents must be extraordinary. I imagined the parfumiers inside meticulously blending rare essences into formulae that had probably been passed down from Aristotle himself. I imagined an impossible range of aromas, each one derived from exotic plants probably hand-picked before sunrise by blind monks on nearby Mount Athos. I imagined customized fragrances concocted by the sage alchemists inside to perfectly express the soul of their wearer. I decided to return the next morning, when the shop opened and the lines would surely be shorter.
At 9am, there was no line at all, just a dozen or so of those young alchemists dressed in black. As we entered the atelier, I pulled out my phone to take a photo, but was politely reprimanded; that cameras weren’t allowed seemed entirely reasonable for a place that dealt in alchemy. I approached one attendant, and learned that her name was Lisa too, which I took as a good sign for someone who was about to concoct the perfume that would best express my deepest self.
She asked what aromas I liked and I started by mentioning oud, which smells delicious, despite being a kind of wood produced when a certain kind of tree becomes infected with mold.
I was just getting started, having planned to mention several more aromas that I favor. But Lisa was already looking something up in the big catalogues they kept under the counter. She jotted down a number on a slip of paper and disappeared for a few minutes. When she returned, she held one of those mysterious metal flasks. She slipped a tester strip into the bottle, and handed it to me to smell.
“Oud,” she said. “By Tom Ford.”
The scales fell from my nose. The shop was not some kind of alchemical atelier staffed by expert parfumiers who drew upon a vast and enigmatic library of exotic oils and essences. It was a store that sold knockoffs of established perfume brands, an emporium of scented dupes; a fugazi olfactory factory.
It also, it turned out, sold individual oils; Mary Alice took home a lovely rose scent. And probably you could have them mix something personal according to your specifications; on this point Lisa wasn’t too clear, having only started working at the shop that week. But most customers just told them the brand they wanted to copy. I bought a small vial of knockoff Oud by Tom Ford, a scent I admittedly love and have never before purchased because it is so expensive.
This one cost me 7 euros. And it reminds me of Thessaloniki every time I wear it.
What about you? Do you buy souvenirs when you travel? Let me hear your trinket stories in the comments.
From @normanabend (my great uncle): As an aging senior, I am trying to get rid of stuff, not acquiring it. But I still want to have a souvenir of places I have been, so my solution to this is to buy those kitschy items that you probably would not want to be seen dead with Small snow cones, miniature churches, two inch high lighthouses, golden Eiffel Towers, shot glasses, plaster casts of puffins, polar bears and clock towers now adorn a table in my study. They are small, lightweight, inexpensive and they really convey the essence of a place. They usually have the place name embossed on a base so you know where they came from. They are ubiquitous in T-Shirt shops and candle stores, but believe it or not, they are sometimes hard to find in more remote, less travelled locales. As a bonus, the great grandchildren love to play with them.
Ha that's hilarious. My partner and I try to collect some kind of art wherever we go - but we also don't like schlepping so it's usually really small pieces or things we can fit in our tiny backpacks. it's a random assortment of stuff too, like paintings, small tapestries, even some tile work, maybe even a tattoo!