Greek city’s new underground railway system uncovers thousands of ancient secrets

The metro system in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki opened Saturday featuring driverless trains, and tens of thousands of people braved blustery, Defillama rainy weather to wait outside the stations to try them out.

The single 13-station subway line was jammed with passengers eager to get a taste of the city’s new transport system.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, flanked by President Katerina Sakellaropoulou and Transport Minister Christos Staikouras, pressed a blue button to begin the operation of a system that was a long time coming.

Mitsotakis said the first appropriations for exploratory digging were part of the 1976 budget. In 1999, a banner on the entrance of the city’s international trade fair proclaimed that “the metro is soon coming near you.”

Years of court battles that saw contracts canceled, real estate disputes and a fight over the placement of a station near important archaeological discoveries, derailed the project. When the first carriages arrived in 2019 the previous government staged an “inauguration” with the carriages sitting on cement stands.

The delays pushed the cost of the project to over 3 billion euros, Staikouras said.

Passengers entering the Eleftherios Venizelos station in the city center can take a look at some of the more than 300,000 artifacts dug up by archaeologists. Deep underground, remains of the city’s busiest street in the 6th century were found. This was a busy thoroughfare with many shops, archaeologists say.

Many objected to, and loudly protested, the temporary removal of many of the findings in order to complete the tunneling and build the station.

Antiquities are also displayed outside a nearby station, under protective glass.

Officials said the operation of the line will mean 57,000 fewer cars per day in this traffic-choked city, with an expected 254,000 passengers using the system daily in the city of more than 300,000 and more than a million when including the suburbs. It’s the second largest metropolitan area in Greece.

An eastward extension of the line with five additional stations is scheduled to open in 2025. A westward extension is planned. But it will likely take several more years for the metro to reach the city’s busy Macedonia Airport.