Thessaloniki
You can be here in March for about €685, 4 days, direct.
Why now
Shoulder season in March: 17°C days, sea 12°C.
June and September give a swimmable Halkidiki and a walkable city, with May pleasant on land and the sea still cool; in August Thessaloniki half-closes while its people go to the beach, and the film festival and trade fair in autumn fill hotels. Winter is grey but the food is undiminished.
Best months here: June, September, October. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled".
The place
Thessaloniki is Greece's second city and its better eater: a long seafront, Byzantine churches on the way to the market, a student population that keeps bars open on weeknights, and an Ottoman and Jewish past the city has only recently started to show. Halkidiki's three peninsulas an hour south add the beaches. It suits people who want a city first and sea second.
What you can do
- 01Walk the seafront from the White Tower to the Umbrellas sculpture at dusk, when the whole city does.
- 02Eat bougatsa for breakfast, then a market lunch in Modiano or Kapani.
- 03See the Rotunda's mosaics and Agios Dimitrios crypt, then the Archaeological Museum's Derveni krater.
- 04Climb to Ano Poli through the Byzantine walls to Eptapyrgio and the view over the gulf.
- 05Drive to Sithonia for a swim at Kavourotrypes or Kriaritsi and a fish taverna in Porto Koufo.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
A first visit should stay between Aristotelous square and Ladadika for the city, then two nights on Sithonia for the beaches; Kassandra suits anyone without a car.
Unusual things
- ◦The Jewish Museum on Agiou Mina, the record of what was a Sephardic-majority city until 1943.
- ◦The Atatürk house next to the Turkish consulate, the pink building where he was born in 1881.
- ◦Bey Hamam on Egnatia, a 15th-century Ottoman bath opened for exhibitions, and the Bezesteni cloth market beside it.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Bus X1, 40 min, €2
- Car needed?
- No — walkable or good public transport
- Getting around
- Bus X1 links the airport with the centre in about 40 minutes and the metro line finally runs under Egnatia; the centre is walked along the seafront. Halkidiki needs a car, though KTEL buses reach the main resorts hourly in summer.
- Clock
- 1 hour ahead of Zurich (Europe/Athens) derived
- Daylight
- 11.9 hours of daylight in March · sunrise 06:42, sunset 18:34 derived
- Currency
- EUR
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 4 days from Zurich in March, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Cairo
Hurghada
Sharm El Sheikh
Salalah
Fuerteventura
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