The garden and view
Shade, peacocks and benches over the city and the gulf.
It is a **working monastery**, not an attraction, and the rules are genuinely enforced. **Modest dress is required**: shoulders and knees covered for men and women, and shorts or bare shoulders may be refused at the door. **Silence** is expected in the church and courtyard, and **photography inside the church is generally forbidden** (ask before raising a phone). โ The monastery closes **for prayer and at midday** โ common in Greek monasteries, so check the hours before climbing to the upper town specifically for it.
**Ride up and walk down** โ the golden rule in Thessaloniki. Take a bus from the centre to **Ano Poli**, start at the **Heptapyrgion** at the top (a cheap ticket, or just the free view from its square), drop to **Vlatades Monastery** for the garden and the view, then keep descending along the **Byzantine walls** and through the quarter's lanes with their timber houses that survived the 1917 fire, until you reach the centre. The whole route is **downhill**, almost entirely free, and takes about two hours โ the best thing to do in Thessaloniki.
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The only Byzantine monastery still working in Thessaloniki, out of more than twenty the city once had โ it stands on the slope of the **upper town** below the walls, and is inscribed among the **UNESCO World Heritage** Palaeochristian and Byzantine monuments of the city. It was founded in the mid **fourteenth century**, and its small church keeps wall paintings from that period. It survived the Ottoman centuries, when most of the city's churches became mosques โ it is said to have enjoyed particular protection, which is what preserved it. Local tradition holds that **Saint Paul** preached on this spot when he visited the city in the first century, and a small shrine in the garden marks it. The monastery today is **working**, inhabited by monks, and houses an institute of patristic studies and an important manuscript library. โ For a passing visitor its loveliest feature is the **garden and courtyard**: shade, trees, wandering peacocks, and a **wide view** over Thessaloniki and the gulf from a quiet bench โ and all of it **free**.
Shade, peacocks and benches over the city and the gulf.
Original Byzantine painting in the small church.
The spot marked by tradition in the garden.
Eptapyrgiou 64, Ano Poli, 54634 Thessaloniki