Pella and Vergina private day trip from Thessaloniki (8 hours)

What fits in eight hours to Pella and Vergina?

Two sites, 173 minutes at the wheel and a loop through the plain west of the city, routed on OpenStreetMap without traffic: 44 min and 46.4 km from the White Tower to Pella, where the portal itself counts 45 to 60 minutes from Thessaloniki, for 90 minutes at the site and its museum; 65 min and 53.2 km south across the plain to the Polycentric Museum of Aigai at Vergina for 170 minutes, the tombs and lunch; 64 min and 67.8 km back to the city. Forty-seven minutes are left loose, for the Palace of Aigai 750 metres from the tombs or a longer table. From a hotel the first and the last leg follow the address. The Dion and Mount Olympus day is the other 8-hour road from the city, south instead of west, and the Thessaloniki page compares the two in one table. The same road west goes on past Pella to the Pozar thermal baths and the Edessa waterfalls, a day we run by request and quote. The tombs with an afternoon on foot in Veria, the Bema of the Apostle Paul and the quarters of Barbouta and Kyriotissa, are the Vergina and Veria day, quoted the same way.

Pella: the capital of Philip and Alexander

The city of Alexander’s birth, as the portal has it, became the capital of Macedon when king Archelaus moved it there from Aigai at the end of the 5th century BC, and under Philip II grew into spacious streets, exemplary town planning and the largest square agora of the ancient Greek world, with mosaic floors and painted walls in the houses of the wealthy; the excavations have uncovered only part of a city of 4,000 stremmata, 400 hectares, where the peristyle courtyards, the mosaics and a section of the agora’s foundations are seen. The site’s ticket is 10 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr), reduced 5 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr). The Archaeological Museum of Pella, built in dialogue with the site that spreads out in front of it in the portal’s words, has a page of its own with a ticket line of its own at the same figures, and neither page says whether one ticket covers both, so budget for two and ask at the desk. The site lists WC and accessibility, the museum a café or restaurant, a shop, WC, parking and an elevator. Open 08:00 to 20:00 from April to August, from noon on Tuesdays, stepping down to 18:00 by late October; 08:30 to 15:30 in winter and closed on winter Tuesdays, while the museum keeps 20:00 to the end of October. Ninety minutes divide between the two.

Vergina: the royal tombs of Aigai, and lunch

The long stop, 170 minutes. The Museum of the Royal Tombs is built like an earthen tumulus, the portal says, and a stone passage leads down into it like a descent into Hades: funerary stelae and the graves of ordinary people first, then the royal household and the tomb of Philip II, given the most magnificent funeral historical Greece knew, with a golden wreath of 313 oak leaves and 68 acorns on the pyre and a golden larnax of 11 kilograms for his bones, his wife Meda following him into the fire. Philip had been struck down in the theatre of Aigai at his daughter’s wedding in 336 BC, by his own bodyguard. The same page covers the Palace of Aigai 750 metres away, whose level peristyle set the king, in the portal’s reading, on the same footing as those around him, and the main museum building, which reassembles the city in thematic ensembles rather than numbered cases; its one ticket line is 20 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr), reduced 10 EUR (checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr). The portal counts 4 minutes by car and 20 on foot from the village of Vergina and an hour from Thessaloniki, and lists a café, a shop, WC, parking and accessibility. Lunch is here, after the tombs, in the village or at the café the portal lists, at your own expense, the driver waiting; tell us if you would rather eat at Pella first and the minutes move. The hours as the portal prints them, 09:00 to 17:00 in winter:

• 1 Apr to 31 Aug: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 08:00 to 20:00, last entry 19:40
• 1 Apr to 31 Aug: Tuesday, 12:00 to 20:00, last entry 19:40
• 1 Sep to 15 Sep: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 08:00 to 19:30, last entry 19:10
• 1 Sep to 15 Sep: Tuesday, 12:00 to 19:30, last entry 19:10
• 16 Sep to 30 Sep: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 08:00 to 19:00, last entry 18:40
• 16 Sep to 30 Sep: Tuesday, 12:00 to 19:00, last entry 18:40
• 1 Oct to 15 Oct: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 08:00 to 18:30, last entry 18:10
• 1 Oct to 15 Oct: Tuesday, 12:00 to 18:30, last entry 18:10
• 16 Oct to 31 Oct: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 08:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:40
• 16 Oct to 31 Oct: Tuesday, 12:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:40
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: Monday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:40
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: Wednesday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:40
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: Thursday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:40
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: Friday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:40
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: Saturday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:40
• 1 Nov to 31 Mar: Sunday, 09:00 to 17:00, last entry 16:40

Checked 14 Oct 2026, hh.gr.

A driver drives, a licensed guide guides

Both stops are sites of the Ministry of Culture, and inside them guiding is the work of state-licensed guides under Law 5121/2024. Our driver drives, waits at the gates with the vehicle and gives the practical orientation; the Macedonian kings are told by a licensed guide, booked ahead on request and quoted with the day, and of our four Thessaloniki days this is the one where most of the stories are inside the cases. The driver-or-guide guide explains the rule.

Steps, shade, toilets and lunch

Lunch is settled above: Vergina, after the tombs. Toilets are listed by the portal at the site of Pella, at its museum and at Aigai, a café at Aigai, a café or restaurant and an elevator at the museum of Pella, parking at both museums. Steps and shade no official page counts, so no figure is printed: the way into the Museum of the Royal Tombs is the stone passage the portal describes, the site of Pella is an open excavation, and the driver’s orientation at each stop covers where the vehicle waits, how far the walk is, where the steps and the shade are. A hat and the bottled water in the vehicle for the site in summer; both museums are indoors.

What does the day cost for our group?

The 8-hour day follows the 8-hour table on the ticket: 700 EUR per group for up to three guests, 800 EUR for four to seven, so six guests pay 133 EUR a head, and per person from eight; the form shows your total, and the office confirms it by email before anything is paid. Paid at the desks and not in the price: the tickets printed above with their dates, two at Pella if the site and the museum charge apart, one at Aigai, lunch, and a licensed guide if you ask for one. The price guide prints the rate card and the fees guide the tickets.

Where do we meet, and which day of the week?

At the door of your hotel in Thessaloniki at the agreed time, and back to it; the legs above start at the White Tower, and the first and the last follow your address. Any day but a winter Tuesday: from November to March both sites close on Tuesdays, and on a summer Tuesday both open at noon, so the day starts at eleven and runs into the evening, with Aigai open to 20:00 through August. The Thessaloniki page sets this day beside the city tour and the Olympus day.