Xanthi

Xanthi sits where the plains of western Thrace meet the foothills of the Rhodope Mountains, a lively university town with one of the most atmospheric old quarters in northern Greece. Its golden age came in the second half of the 19th century, when Xanthi grew rich on the tobacco trade and merchants poured their fortunes into building grand houses on the slopes above the river.

The Old Town is the reason to come. Rebuilt after devastating earthquakes in 1829, its steep, cobbled lanes are lined with the colourful mansions of former tobacco merchants, their walls painted in ochre, blue and rose, their gardens spilling with flowers. European furnishings, imported fittings and frescoes by foreign painters spoke of a bourgeois, outward-looking society, and at its height the town supported four foreign consulates, banks, cinemas and a theatre. Byzantine churches, neoclassical facades and Ottoman-era mosques and minarets stand within a few streets of one another.

That proximity reflects the town's enduring character. Xanthi has long been multicultural, home to Christian Greeks, a Muslim minority and the Pomaks of the surrounding mountains, and the mix is woven into its markets, food and festivals. The Saturday bazaar is a genuine crossroads of the region, and the town's carnival is one of the largest and most exuberant in Greece.

Beyond the old town, Xanthi is a young and energetic place thanks to its student population, with a good café and music scene around the central square. The old tobacco warehouses near the modern centre are handsome industrial buildings in their own right, some now repurposed for culture and events. To the north, the road climbs into the Rhodope, past the villages of the Pomaks and towards the wild forests along the Bulgarian border.

Xanthi is easily combined with the coast and the wetlands of the Nestos river to the south, or with Kavala to the west. It works best as a half-day or overnight stop on a wider tour of Thrace. Spring and autumn are loveliest, while late winter brings the colour and noise of the carnival to the old streets.