This City First Started Its Metro Construction in 1989 – It Finally Opened in 2024

Metros are an incredibly convenient way to get around cities and avoid the traffic above ground. There are at least 205 cities in the world with metro systems. Most of these are in middle to large cities with some smaller cities like Lausanne, Switzerland (150,000 people) and Buffalo, NY (smallest city in America with a metro) having them.

In Greece, Athens was the only city with a metro system and it is a good one. But, the second largest city in Greece, the northern city of Thessaloniki, had wanted a metro for over 100 years. It took a long time for that to come into fruition!

Thessaloniki Finally Got Its Metro

My family and I had lived in Thessaloniki for a time and its coming metro system was a constant joke amongst the city’s residents. The reason for that is that the first construction for a metro in Thessaloniki started way back in 1989 before getting halted and dying off for a long time. It finally started again in the summer of 2006.

However, that was shortly before the financial crisis that crippled Greece for a while. After that, the next holdup actually was the city’s history. The city of Thessaloniki has an incredibly rich history in ancient sites and artifacts from Greek, Roman, and Ottoman periods. In fact, Thessaloniki is sometimes called the city of the outdoor museum as there are ancient sites around the city that have been embraced into the more modern construction and city.

Why the Delay?

As they dug for the main metro line, they began to find more and more artifacts which would halt the work until officials could come in and determine if they needed to go around the site or if they could remove the artifacts.

Thessaloniki, Greece – November 30 2024: archaeological exhibits inside Agias Sofias metro station terminal.

During the course of the construction, over 300,000 artifacts were located. These included:

• A Roman-era marble-paved main street.
• The remains of public buildings from the 7th century.
• Thousands of graves dating to the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
• Over 50,000 coins.
• Vessels, lamps, and jewels.

So, this construction actually really helped to unveil more of the city’s history – but it also made the process of the metro construction slow to a total drag. Even though the opening date kept getting pushed back again and again and again and again, there were people that kept holding out hope that the opening was “just around the corner.” Building owners would use the upcoming metro as a selling point for renting their buildings – which was totally laughable. No one was going to pay a premium to be near a station for a metro that had been promised for years and years.

While we had been there, it was constantly being said it would open “this year” but that never happened. As they finished the stations, they did invite people to come and visit to see what they looked like and to see that things were actually progressing.

And, finally, last November, the Thessaloniki main metro line opened. We finally had a chance to experience it during a trip this fall. After having heard about it for so long, our family was pretty excited to try it out and see what the stations looked like.

What Makes Thessaloniki Different

Different cities have made their metro stations to be quite unique – my personal favorite is the Stockholm metro (you can see some of my photos here of it). Thessaloniki certainly made their metro to be something special with many of the artifacts discovered on display and an impeccably clean metro line. Granted, it is currently only one line that is about 6 miles long but they do an awesome job of making sure the place is very clean, even one year after it opened.

Cost and Tickets

The current ticket system is that you purchase a 70 minute ticket for 70 cents. Using a timed system means that many people will leave their tickets at the bottom of the escalators for incoming riders to grab and use so they don’t need to buy a ticket. My kids loved trying to find these tickets. 🙂 But, the metro has cleaners that are constantly going around to scoop these up and throw them out to make all riders purchase tickets.

It certainly took long enough to open the Thessaloniki Metro but it is a metro that the city can be proud of and will certainly relieve the incredible traffic burden happening up on the surface. If you go to Thessaloniki, definitely give it a ride! Except it is closed until December 10 as they test for the new line 🙂 

Pro tip: Parking in Thessaloniki can be a nightmare – if you stay there and want to have a car but don’t need it every day, consider parking it Nea Elvetia which is just outside the city on the airport side. There is a lot of parking around there and it is free so you could leave it there and just take the metro down when you need it.