Visit the Greek city built on a wisp of smoke

Tobacco put seaside Kavala on the map – but there is more to its fascinating history than that. Tina Walsh wonders why so few British travellers go there

Known as the Blue City thanks to its enchanting position overlooking the Aegean Sea, Kavala may not be a name that’s familiar to you. Yet this compact, lively city and principal seaport is an unexplored gem at any time of year – and remarkably light on tourists.

Its Byzantine, Jewish and Ottoman heritage contributes to the city’s rich cultural and architectural mix and, by the early 20th century, it had become known as the “Mecca of Tobacco” because of its ideal growing conditions for the golden weed. At one time, there were more than 160 tobacco factories and 60 companies exporting it around the world, employing 15,000 workers out of a population of just 50,000.

Today, you can still see some of the huge warehouses and grand neo-classical mansions that the tobacco barons built for themselves along Kavala’s waterfront. One such mansion, now the town hall, was modelled on a Hungarian castle, while the warehouses are being repurposed as fashionable shopping centres and cultural venues. There is even a tobacco museum with a collection of old machinery, photos and tobacco advertisements.

The refugee legacy looms large in Kavala. In 1923, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed, more than a million and a half Greeks living in Asia Minor, or Anatolia (modern day Turkey), were forcibly removed from their homeland and made to settle in Greece. Kavala’s population mushroomed more or less overnight to 75,000.

Make your first stop the Museum of Greek Refugees on Kolokotroni Street, where old photographs and iconography line the walls, and there are glass cabinets stuffed with poignant personal mementos – a lock of hair, house keys, jewellery – donated down the generations. One image, a sepia photograph, shows a man and woman dressed in simple clothing – the parents of founder Manolis Zacharopoulos, who came to

Kavala from Asia Minor as part of the population exchange. “The new arrivals didn’t always receive a warm welcome,” he explained when we met. “They couldn’t speak the language and followed a different religion. Some lived in tents, abandoned houses and deserted mosques right up until the 1970s.”

Tensions have been mostly ironed out now and clubs and societies run by their descendants keep the old customs alive, making for a city that is as culturally diverse as it is charming.

From the museum, it is a steady climb up winding cobbled streets to Panagia, Kavala’s old town, and the Byzantine walled fortress built in the early 15th century. Past the 80ft-high aqueduct, a Roman structure rebuilt by the Ottomans in the 16th century, lovely woodframed houses line the streets, giving an idea of what Kavala might once have looked like. A picturesque walk round the walls leads to the stubby whitewashed lighthouse, with the island of Thassos visible in the distance and, on a clear day, Mount Athos, where the King (then Prince Charles) used to escape for spiritual contemplation with the resident community of Orthodox monks. Women are banned, so Camilla reportedly had to make do with bobbing around the Aegean in a yacht.

The amphitheatre at the top of Panagia puts on year-round shows: one, Cosmopolis (May to December), celebrates world music and dance, while the Philippi Festival (July and August) showcases a mix of classical and contemporary drama, dance and music. Founded in 1957, the festival is one of the longest-running in all of Greece.

On the way back down, make a pit stop at bar and coffee shop Ochre, one of a number of former derelict buildings in the area that have been renovated and opened as small independent businesses. As you reach the bottom of the hill, you will come upon the Imaret, one of Kavala’s most important structures, built as a poor house and religious school in 1817. Now, the complex of domes, shady courtyards and orange gardens sprinkled with fountains is testament to Ottoman engineering and architectural symmetry. You can even stay – today it is a five-star hotel where rooms cost at least £400 a night.

As you amble back into the centre at dusk, the pedestrianised streets around Agios Nikolaos church start to fill up with locals heading for the tavernas, bars and fish restaurants. Ask the owner of the Sousouro souvlaki tavern if you can walk through to the back to see the atmospheric old hammam that once belonged to the church. Built as a mosque in the 16th century, the impressive building was repurposed after the

Ottomans’ retreat. At its southern side is a mosaic memorial to St Paul, who preached on the very same spot before heading to the ancient city of Philippi 10 miles to the north, now a Unesco World Heritage site.

The next day, make the 50-minute drive northeast to the foothills of Mount Pangaion, where the villages of Mesoropi and Moustheni make charming places to stroll, and admire the imposing 19th-century mansions of the tobacco merchants, watermills and traditional stone houses. Many of them are being done up and turned into holiday homes and boutique hotels, including the old school house in Moustheni. When lunchtime beckons, stop for a local Vergina beer and tirokafteri (a creamed, spicy feta dip) at Tzami restaurant in the main square.

In Mesropi, buy organic home-made tahini and honey from mountain pine

trees at the Floros Tahini workshop or visit the Ktima Biblia Chora winery just outside the village, owned by two of the most famous winemakers in Greece.

If you fancy a day trip, the obvious choice is Thassos, the northernmost island in the Aegean – one of the greenest in Greece, and just an hour from Kavala by ferry. Colonised by everyone from the Phoenicians to the Persians before it fell under Ottoman rule, Thassos is littered with archaeological sites and is famous for its expensive snowwhite marble, mined since ancient times and now sold to the Middle East and the United States.

Stop at the island’s oldest village, Kastro – abandoned a century ago when its inhabitants left to find work in the capital Limenaria – and meander around quaint old stone houses, most of them in the process of being fixed up, and the tavernas, shops and restaurants that are steadily appearing in its narrow alleys. At Costas’ taverna, your Turkish coffee will inevitably be accompanied by a bottle of tsipouro, a Greek schnapps with a kick like one of the local mules. Three glasses in and it’s hard to tear yourself away, so best spend the afternoon enjoying the entertainment of Costas himself, a large, ebullient man with a handlebar moustache, who amuses customers with magic tricks.

In the evening, take the ferry back to Kavala – where, as you sail into port, the sun will be setting, Mount Athos outlined majestically against a dusky sky, your heart suffused with tsipouro and a new-found corner of Greece. Our new King was definitely on to something.