Aristotelous Square is the monumental centrepiece of Thessaloniki's lower city — a wide, slightly Parisian sweep of colonnaded arcades opening onto the seafront promenade. Designed by the French urbanist Ernest Hébrard as part of the ambitious post-fire rebuilding plan of 1917, it was intended to restore order and grandeur to a city that had been largely levelled by the blaze. The result is a civic space that feels simultaneously European and distinctly Greek: cafés spilling out under the arcades, a fish market off to one side, and at the bottom end the sea glittering between the columns.
At any hour someone is sitting at a café here, and at the weekend the square fills with families, couples, and groups of teenagers doing slow circuits. It's a good place to get your bearings: the White Tower is a short walk left along the waterfront, the Modiano market is directly behind it, and the Roman Forum sits a block up the hill. From the seafront end you get a clear view across the bay to the cone of Mount Olympus on clear days.