The story
Dimitria Festival Thessaloniki in Thessaloniki
Dimitria Festival traces back to a tenth-century Byzantine trade fair timed to the feast days of Thessaloniki's patron saint, Dimitrios, whose October 26 feast day also marks the city's 1912 liberation from Ottoman rule. Today it is Northern Greece's largest cultural and intellectual festival, held each early autumn with concerts, exhibitions and performances marking the start of the city's autumn cultural season.
Dimitria traces its name and its calendar to the tenth century, when Byzantine Thessaloniki held an annual trade fair timed to the feast days of the city's patron saint, Dimitrios, exchanging inland agricultural goods for seafood from further along the coast.