After more than two decades of construction, countless setbacks, and multi-billion-Euro budget overruns, the metro system in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city, has finally opened.
Commuters will have a special experience: countless archaeological finds discovered during construction will be on full display throughout the system, which has been built in such a way as to accommodate them, in some cases just where they were unearthed.
Some of the highlights among the discoveries include marble squares, an early Christian basilica, a Roman-era road, drainage systems, and Greek burial chambers full of jewelry. At Eleftherios Venizelos station, excavations uncovered a street that was once one of the city’s busiest.
“This is not just a public works project, which is incredibly important for the city. It is also a museum,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement ahead of the opening. “It’s probably unique in the world. We will go through an underground museum to reach the train.”
Some of the objects from the Byzantine and Roman periods found during the construction of the metro. Photo: Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP.
The fully automated system is made up of a single line which spans six miles and 13 stations. It’s the country’s second-largest metro system after Athens, and is expected to draw more than 250,000 daily passengers, significantly removing pressure from Thessaloniki’s roads.
Located on the Aegean Sea, the city was founded in 315 B.C.E. by Cassander of Macedon, who named it after his wife Thessalonike, who was the sister of Alexander the Great. It has played host to the Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans, civilizations whose artifacts will be on display throughout the metro system—in all, more than 300,000 artifacts were discovered during the construction. In many instances since development began in 2006, it was the unwitting discovery of these artifacts that delayed the project, forcing engineers, architects, and archaeologists to rethink and collaborate.
The Agia Sofia metro station in the center of Thessaloniki. Photo: Achilleas Chiras NurPhoto/ Getty Images.
The metro system was originally due to be completed by 2012; the debt crisis that lasted from 2009 to 2018 exacerbated delays.
Central Thessaloniki’s Demokratias station, for instance, was deemed a high-importance archaeological site on account of the early Christian church and cemetery, Ottoman inns, and storehouses discovered on-site. Ultimately, the station was moved by about 30 feet to better accommodate the remnants of a Byzantine-era wall.
The museum of the metro station Venizelou. Photo: Sakis Mitrolidis / AFP.
Engineers were often forced to dig deeper, at times up to 100 feet down, to avoid disturbing the archaeological record, and architects were made to redesign stations to accommodate the new finds. As Webuild, the Italian construction group that partnered with the city, said in a statement, “Passing through one of the 13 stations, transformed into ‘archaeo-stations,’ travelers embark on a journey through time.”
In 2025, the system is due to be extended eastward with the addition of five stations. By 2040, the city hopes to extend the system to reach the international airport.