Thessaloniki spreads along a gulf in northern Greece as a compact port city with a flat centre and a steep upper town. The heart of the city sits in a walkable grid, while a driverless metro line, the OASTH bus network, taxis, bikes, and scooters carry you further. The lower town rewards the walker, and … Read more
Thessaloniki works as a family city because its heart is flat, compact, and turned toward the sea. A single paved waterfront runs for kilometres past gardens, sculptures, and cafés, level enough for a scooter or a first bicycle. The centre packs a climbable tower, a science centre with a planetarium, and museums into a short … Read more
Mount Athos is the monastic republic that fills the third and easternmost finger of Halkidiki, a self-governed peninsula of twenty ruling monasteries closed to the wider world by an ancient rule. The cruise from Thessaloniki carries travellers along its west coast, close enough to read the walls, towers, and domes of the monasteries from the … Read more
Mount Olympus rises to 2,918 metres on the border of Macedonia and Thessaly, the highest mountain in Greece and the mythical seat of the ancient gods. The peak stands roughly ninety kilometres south of Thessaloniki, close enough for a full-day visit and far enough to fill the day. A day trip pairs the base village … Read more
Thessaloniki carries more than twenty-three centuries of history in its streets, from a Macedonian foundation named for a princess to a modern Greek metropolis on the Thermaic Gulf. The city has served as a Roman provincial capital, an imperial seat under Galerius, the second city of Byzantium, an Ottoman port, and the largest Sephardic Jewish … Read more
The Museum of Byzantine Culture holds the richest record of Byzantine art in northern Greece, gathered inside an award-winning brick building near the seafront of Thessaloniki. Its eleven permanent galleries trace the empire from the early Christian centuries to the years after the Ottoman conquest, through icons, mosaics, coins, and the painted tombs of the … Read more
The Byzantine churches of Thessaloniki form the richest span of early Christian and medieval church building to survive in one Greek city. They run from the fifth-century basilicas of the early empire to the domed churches of the last Byzantine age, raised in brick over the Roman streets and the martyrs’ tombs. Fifteen of these … Read more
The Roman Forum of Thessaloniki is the excavated civic square of the ancient city, a two-level complex of paved terraces, colonnades, and an odeon set in the heart of the modern centre. The Greeks laid out their agora on this ground, and Rome rebuilt it as the forum that ran the public life of the … Read more
Aristotelous Square is the main plaza of Thessaloniki, a broad marble-paved space that opens onto the waterfront at the heart of the city centre. The French architect Ernest Hébrard drew it into his plan for the city after the great fire of nineteen-seventeen razed the old Ottoman quarter. Twelve listed buildings frame the square in … Read more
The Church of Agios Dimitrios is the great five-aisled basilica of Thessaloniki’s patron saint, raised over the Roman baths where the soldier Demetrios was held and run through with a spear. The church has stood on this ground since the early Christian centuries, rebuilt after fire and earthquake, and it guards a crypt at the … Read more