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Thessalonika UNESCO world heritage sites

Thessalonika north

Heptapyrgion fortress at Eptapirgiou 152
It was first constructed during the Byzantine era (330 AD to 1453 AD), although this most recent version was rebuilt by the Ottomans after they conquered the city in the 1400s.

Vlatadon Monastery at Eptapirgiou 64
Out of the original temple only a few architectural elements are being preserved until today, Including curved arches, pediments and semi-columns.

Byzantine Bath at Theotokopoulou 13
The Byzantine Bath of the Upper Town in Thessaloniki is one of the few and best preserved of the Byzantine baths that have survived from the Byzantine period in Greece.

Church of Hosios David at Epimenidou 17
In Byzantine times, it functioned as the katholikon of the Latomos Monastery, and received a rich mosaic and fresco decoration, which was renewed in the 12th-14th centuries. The surviving examples are of high artistic quality. Under Ottoman rule, the building was converted into a mosque (probably in the 16th century), until it was reconsecrated as a Greek Orthodox church in 1921, receiving its present name.

Prophet Elijah Church at Olimpiados
It has been traditionally identified as the katholikon of the Nea Moni monastery, built ca. 1360-1370 on the site of a former palace destroyed in 1342 by the Zealot uprising.

Church of Saint Catherine at Ious 2
From its interior decoration, which survives in fragments and is dated to ca. 1315, it has been suggested that it was the katholikon of the Monastery of the Almighty. It was converted to a mosque by Yakup Pasha in the reign of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481-1512) and named after him Yakup Pasha Mosque.

Church of the Holy Apostles at Olimpou 1
The building belongs to the type of the composite, five-domed cross-in-square churches, with four supporting columns. It also features a narthex with a U-shaped peristoon (an ambulatory with galleries), with small domes at each corner. There are also two small side-chapels to the east. The exterior walls feature rich decoration with a variety of brick-work patterns.

Thessalonika south

Hagia Sophia at Agias Sofias
Since the 3rd century, there was a church in the location of the current Hagia Sophia. In the 8th century, the present structure was erected, based on the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul, Turkey). In 1205, when the Fourth Crusade captured the city, the Hagia Sophia was converted into the cathedral of Thessaloniki, which it remained after the city was returned to the Byzantine Empire in 1246. After the capture of Thessaloniki by the Ottoman Sultan Murad II on 29 March 1430, the church was converted into a mosque. It was reconverted to a church upon the liberation of Thessaloniki in 1912.

Church of the Acheiropoietos at Odos Agias Sofias 56
The Acheiropoietos has been dated from its bricks and mosaics to ca. 450-470, making it perhaps the earliest of the city's surviving churches. It was modified in the 7th and again in the 14th-15th centuries. Known as the Panagia Theotokos in Byzantine times, it is dedicated to Mary. Its current name is first attested in 1320, presumably after a miraculous acheiropoietos ("not made by hands") icon of Panagia Hodegetria that was housed there.

Church of St. Panteleimon at Agiou Panteleimonos 1
Its current dedication to Saint Panteleimon was given to the church after the end of Ottoman rule in 1912, and its original dedication is therefore disputed. In Ottoman times, it was converted into a mosque in 1548 and became known as Ishakiye Camii ("Mosque of Ishak [Isaac]"), which in the prevailing scholarly interpretation points to an identification with the late Byzantine Monastery of the Virgin Peribleptos, also known as the Monastery of Kyr Isaac after its founder Jacob, who was the city's metropolitan bishop in 1295-1315 and became a monk with the monastic name of Isaac.

Rotonda Roman Temple at Pl. Agiou Georgiou Rotonta 5
The cylindrical structure was built in 306 AD on the orders of the tetrarch Galerius, who was thought to have intended it to be his mausoleum.

Saint Nicholas Orphan Orthodox Church at Irodotou 1
The church is most notable for its frescoes, contemporary with the church's construction, which cover almost the entire interior surface. The frescoes are an example of the Thessalonican school at the height of the "Palaiologan Renaissance", and their creator may be the same who decorated the Hilandar monastery in Mount Athos in 1314.

Church of St. Demetrios at Agiou Dimitriou
The basilica is famous for six extant mosaic panels, dated to the period between the latest reconstruction and the inauguration of the Iconoclastic policies in 730.

Church of Panagia Chalkeon at Chalkeon 2
The exterior is enlivened with a variety of arches and pilasters, elements which can be traced to Constantinopolitan influence.