Thessaloniki travel guide

Top 10 sights in Thessaloniki

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   Church of Agios Dimitrios, Thessaloniki

   A basilica of the seventh century over the Roman bath where Demetrius, the city's patron, was imprisoned and killed. Five mosaic panels of the fifth to seventh centuries survived the 1917 fire, and the crypt below holds the martyrium; it is World Heritage.

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   2© Hermann Hammer · CC BY-SA 4.0

   White Tower of Thessaloniki

   A tower of the late fifteenth century on the waterfront, part of the Ottoman refortification, and the emblem of the city. It was long a prison; the story goes that a convict whitewashed it in 1890 in exchange for his freedom, and the name stuck though the paint has gone.

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   3© Ymblanter · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Hagia Sophia

   A church of the seventh century, built on the plan of its namesake in Constantinople, and one of the oldest standing in the city. Its dome carries a ninth-century mosaic of the Ascension, and it was a mosque from 1523 to 1912.

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   4© Armineaghayan · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Arch of Galerius and Rotunda

   An arch of about AD 299 celebrating Galerius's victory over the Persians, and beside it the Rotunda — a circular domed building of the same years, later a church and then a mosque. The Rotunda's minaret is the only one left standing in Thessaloniki.

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   5© Prof. Vlasis Vlasidis · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki

   The archaeological museum, holding the gold from the Macedonian tombs of the region and the Derveni krater — a bronze wine vessel of the fourth century BC, worked in relief with Dionysus and Ariadne, and the finest metalwork to survive from ancient Greece.

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   Church of the Acheiropoietos

   A basilica of the 450s that has never been out of religious use in sixteen centuries, and one of the oldest churches in Christendom in that respect. A Turkish inscription cut into a column records the conquest of the city in 1430, when it became a mosque.

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   Aristotelous Square

   The city's main square, laid out on the seafront to Ernest Hébrard's plan after the fire of 1917 destroyed most of the centre. His arcaded Byzantine-revival frontages were only partly built, which is why the square looks unfinished.

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   8© LucT · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Church of Saint Nicholas Orphanos

   A small church of the early fourteenth century whose interior is completely covered in frescoes of that date — the most complete surviving Byzantine painted programme in the city, and part of its World Heritage listing.

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   9© Konstantinos Stampoulis (el:User:Geraki) · CC BY-SA 2.5

   Church of Panagia Chalkeon

   A brick church of 1028, its dome carried on a compact cross plan and its exterior patterned in brickwork rather than faced in stone. The name refers to the coppersmiths whose quarter it stood in, and it was a mosque for four centuries.

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    New Mosque

    Mosque in Thessaloniki of 1902, built for the Dönme, followers of the Jewish messianic claimant Sabbatai Zevi who had converted to Islam. It now serves as an exhibition hall.

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   1© Elisa Triolo · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Walls of Thessaloniki

   Four kilometres survive of walls that once ran eight, most of what stands dating from about AD 390 and incorporating third-century work. The seaward section was pulled down in the 1870s to open the front, and the upper town's walls and the Trigonion tower are the best stretch.

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   2© Damian Pankowiec · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Heptapyrgion

   A Byzantine and Ottoman fortress at the northeastern corner of the Thessaloniki acropolis, also known by its Turkish name Yedi Kule. The name means the fort of seven towers although there are in fact ten, and the garrison commander lived here until the late nineteenth century.

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   3© Kemal Cenk Sarioglu from Istanbul, Turkey · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Atatürk Museum

   The house in Thessaloniki where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in 1881, when the city was Ottoman. The pink building stands in the grounds of the Turkish consulate and can be visited.

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   4© Luc.T · CC BY 2.0

   Church of Hosios David

   A small church of the late fifth century whose apse mosaic shows Christ as a beardless young man, seated on the arc of heaven — an image from before the conventional bearded type. It was plastered over in the Ottoman centuries and rediscovered in 1921.

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   5© Stolbovsky · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Vlatadon Monastery

   Monastery in Thessaloniki founded around 1350 and the only one of the city's Byzantine monasteries still in use. It holds a patriarchal library of manuscripts.

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   6© C messier · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Byzantine Bath

   A bath house of the late twelfth century in the upper town, and the best-preserved Byzantine bath in Greece. It was still working as a public bath until 1940, with separate hours for men and women, which is why it survived.

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   Museum of Byzantine Culture

   The Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki, opened in 1994.

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   8© NYC2TLV · CC BY 3.0

   Monastir Synagogue

   An Orthodox synagogue of the once great Jewish community of Thessaloniki. It was built by people from Monastir in what is now North Macedonia, from which it takes its name.

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   Hamza Bey Mosque

   A mosque of 1460, one of the earliest Ottoman buildings in the city, abandoned in the 1820s. For decades it housed a cinema, the Alkazar, and locals still call it by that name; the building is being restored.

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    10© Sam. SALTIEL · CC BY-SA 3.0

    Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki

    A museum of the Sephardi community that made up roughly half the city's population before 1912, descended from families expelled from Spain in 1492. Around ninety-six per cent of Thessaloniki's fifty thousand Jews were deported to Auschwitz in 1943; the museum is run by the survivors' community.

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