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Greece · City break

Thessaloniki City Guide

Greece's second city carries its two thousand years casually by the water: Roman triumphal arches in the middle of the pedestrian zone, Byzantine churches on the UNESCO list, the White Tower on the seafront promenade – and, since late 2024, a driverless metro whose Venizelou station exhibits a complete ancient street. Two ready-made routes divide the city: the centre by the sea and the upper town, the only quarter to survive the great fire of 1917.

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Our walking tours of Thessaloniki

Ready-made routes from the station guide you through Thessaloniki – to the right spots from the very first step, with no planning needed.

Ancient Street, Kamara & White Tower

The day begins underground: in Venizelou metro station lies the marble-paved main street of Byzantine Thessaloniki – in situ, probably unique anywhere. Above it wait the Roman agora, then the reopened Modiano Market and Aristotelous Square by the water. On to Agia Sofia, under the Arch of Galerius to the Rotunda with its gold mosaics – and finally, on the promenade, the White Tower, which only turned white when a prisoner painted it in exchange for his freedom.

  1. Venizelou metro station – The most unusual opener of all our routes: a metro station. Digging the metro, the excavators here struck the marble-paved main street of Roman-Byzantine Thessaloniki, columns and shops included – and after years of dispute up to the supreme court, the tunnels were laid deeper so the street could stay where it has lain for a millennium and a half. Since opening in 2024, Venizelou is reckoned the world's first metro station with a walkable ancient street in situ: the escalator leads literally through the centuries. The reason for the metro's record building time thus stands right at the start of the route: beneath this city there is still a city.
  2. Roman Agora – In the middle of a residential quarter the ground drops, and suddenly you stand at the edge of a Roman city centre: the agora of the 2nd century was the administrative and market square of ancient Thessaloniki, with an odeon, baths and an underground colonnade, the cryptoporticus. Precisely there the museum is built in today – so you walk beneath the ancient square while the neighbourhood cafés carry on above. This casualness is the real attraction: Thessaloniki literally lives one floor above its antiquity.
  3. Modiano Market – The market hall bears the name of its architect Eli Modiano, son of one of the city's great Jewish families – a piece of everyday heritage of Sephardic Thessaloniki, once called "Madre de Israel". After decades of decay the hall was elaborately restored and reopened in 2022, with original girders, marble stairs and some 75 shops: olives, fish and mountains of spices at the front, a food hall with nine kitchens at the back. TIME magazine promptly ennobled the revived market in its list of the "World's Greatest Places". Come hungry – the route's lunch break is planned here.
  4. Aristotelous Square – When the Great Fire of 1917 destroyed two-thirds of the city, the French architect Ernest Hébrard was commissioned with the new beginning – and drew this monumental square opening to the sea in a colonnaded semicircle. Most of it was only built in the fifties, and it was actually to be named after Alexander the Great, complete with a monumental statue that never came; instead a seated Aristotle now watches over cafés and strollers. His left foot is polished bright: rubbing it is said to make you clever – the city's students take no chances.
  5. Agia Sofia – The name says it all: like its great model in Constantinople, Thessaloniki's Agia Sofia is dedicated to Holy Wisdom, built around the year 700 – and architectural historians love it as the connecting link at which the domed basilica becomes the cross-in-square church, the type that shaped Byzantium from then on. In the dome floats the mosaic of Christ's Ascension, borne by the twelve apostles between olive trees. Since 1988 the church has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage of the city's early Christian monuments – one of fifteen you will pass more than once today.
  6. Arch of Galerius (Kamara) – In the middle of the pedestrian zone stands a Roman triumphal arch, and half the city arranges to meet "at the Kamara": Emperor Galerius had the arch built around 298 for his victory over the Persian Sasanians; of the original eight piers, three still stand. Step close – the stacked relief bands tell the campaign like a stone comic strip, with battles, elephants and imperial portraits, one of the richest pictorial sources of late Roman antiquity anywhere. Then stand beneath the arch: the axis behind it leads straight to the Rotunda, your next destination.
  7. Rotunda – A round building with walls six metres thick, erected around 306 under Galerius – for what purpose, nobody knows for certain to this day: mausoleum or temple? In any case it was never used as a tomb; the emperor died far from the city. Instead the Rotunda early became a church, and its dome carries early Christian gold mosaics of floating lightness, saints before palace architectures. It is considered one of Greece's oldest continuously used church buildings – and its Ottoman-era minaret is the only one still standing in Thessaloniki. One building, four empires: Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Greek.
  8. White Tower & Umbrellas – By the water waits the landmark with the darkest biography: the Ottoman round tower, whose date of construction is still disputed, served as a notorious prison; after a massacre of insurgents it was called the "Tower of Blood". It has only been white since 1890 – by tradition, a prisoner painted it in exchange for his freedom. Today a museum inside tells the city's history, and the spiral ramp ends with a panorama over the Thermaic Gulf. Then the promenade is yours: ten minutes on, the "Umbrellas" of sculptor Zongolopoulos dance in the evening light – thirteen-metre stainless-steel parasols, the city's favourite photo since 1997. Stay for sunset; here it falls straight into the sea.

Ano Poli: Walls, Monasteries & the Balcony

Day two turns the city upside down: the bus takes you up to the Heptapyrgion citadel, a prison until 1989, then downhill through the only quarter that survived the fire of 1917 – Ottoman timber houses, cobbled lanes, cats. In between: the "balcony of Thessaloniki" at the Trigonion Tower, the peacock monastery of Vlatadon and the mosaic of the beardless Christ in Osios David. The finale is Agios Dimitrios, the basilica of the city's patron, with its Roman crypt.

  1. Heptapyrgion (Yedi Kule) – At the very top, on the north-east corner of the old acropolis, stands the citadel with the double name: Byzantine Heptapyrgion, Ottoman Yedi Kule – both meaning "seven towers", although there are ten. Its heaviest era came last: from the 19th century until 1989 the fortress served as a prison, including for political prisoners under occupation, civil war and military dictatorship – for many Greeks the name remains a dark word to this day. Today walls and courtyard are accessible, and the way up rewards twice over: the descent through the upper town begins at its highest, quietest point.
  2. Trigonion Tower – They call it the "balcony of Thessaloniki", and the tower has earned the title: from the Ottoman artillery tower at the wall's corner the view falls across the whole city to the gulf – and on clear days Mount Olympus, mountain of the gods, actually traces itself on the horizon, a good 80 kilometres away as the crow flies. In the evening the wall's edge fills with students, guitars and beer bottles; the sunset from up here is the city's most communal experience. If you like, first walk a stretch of the Byzantine city wall, of which some four kilometres still stand.
  3. Vlatadon Monastery – Halfway down hides the city's only continuously active Byzantine monastery: Vlatadon, founded around 1350 by two brothers from the circle of the mystic Gregory Palamas, today a UNESCO World Heritage site. Among visitors it is famous for something else entirely – a flock of peacocks struts between the cypresses in the garden, their call echoing over the upper town. That is no accident: in Byzantine art the peacock counts as a symbol of immortality. From the terrace the view reaches over city and gulf; in the midday heat the shaded courtyard is the best break far and wide.
  4. Osios David – A little church like a secret: Osios David, hidden in the lanes, holds an apse mosaic of the late 5th century that draws connoisseurs from around the world – Christ as a young, beardless man, enthroned on the rainbow in Ezekiel's vision. The depiction is so early and so rare that it fits hardly any scheme; by tradition it survived iconoclasm behind a walled-up screen. The opening hours are moody, and precisely that is part of the charm: if the door stands open, you often have one of the great treasures of Byzantium entirely to yourself.
  5. Agios Dimitrios – Arrived below, the city's principal shrine awaits: the five-aisled basilica of the patron Dimitrios, a Roman officer martyred here around 303. The church burned in 1917 too, was rebuilt by 1949 – and yet saved six early Byzantine mosaic panels on which the youthful saint stands among the donors. The real goose-bump place lies beneath the choir: the crypt with the remains of the Roman bath in which, by tradition, Dimitrios was imprisoned and died. For four hundred years the church was a mosque; since 1988 it has been UNESCO World Heritage – a single building as a summary of the whole city's history.

Getting there & around

Since November 2024 Thessaloniki has what was a city joke for decades: a metro – driverless, with platform doors, thirteen stations from the New Railway Station across beneath the centre. It is complemented by the dense OASTH bus network; tickets come from machines and kiosks. Important: the metro does not reach the airport – bus X1 goes there, N1 at night, each in just under an hour. The centre itself you walk almost entirely; only up to the upper town is the bus worth it: ride up, stroll down. Dinner is late, partying later still.

Going out & nightlife

Rooftop bars

Nightlife quarters

Food & restaurants

Stage & concerts

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