Ask a Thessalonian for the prettiest church in town and a fair number will name the Holy Apostles, a small building from about 1310 to 1314 near the old Roman and Byzantine heart of the city, a few steps from the Egnatia Street axis. It was built, according to tradition, by the patriarch Niphon, and it is a showpiece of the Palaiologan style: five domes, a ring of arches, and walls where bricks have been laid in bands, zigzags and little crosses until the whole surface looks embroidered. On the outside, the pattern is the thing. Inside, mosaics from the same decade have survived in the domes, showing the Pantokrator and groups of apostles in tiny cubes of glass.
The church was also a mosque for a long period, and the Ottomans left a washing fountain in the courtyard. Restoration in the twentieth century removed later additions and revealed the beauty of the brickwork. A courtyard garden around the church is cool and green, and the sound of traffic fades in it, so it is a good place to sit for a few minutes. Because the building is small, with a low door, you have to stoop slightly to enter, which adds to the feeling of stepping into another world.
The location is right at the boundary of Sykiés and Neapoli, two dense districts with a combined population well beyond seventy thousand. Streets here are flat compared with the upper town, but they are crowded with parked cars, delivery vans and a continuous stream of scooters. Treat junctions with care, because drivers tend to assume priority and buses stop without warning. Early morning or Sunday is the quiet time, when you can roll up to the courtyard and park alongside the wall.
You will not struggle for fuel, since stations stand along the avenues, and grocery shops, bakeries and tavernas cluster in every block. A bakery that has a tray of freshly baked tiropita, the cheese pie, will make a decent lunch for a couple of euros. When you leave, ride down towards the sea and look back at the hill, where the old walls line the skyline and the domes rise above the red roofs.