Explore Thessaloniki

Aristotelous Square is the main square of Thessaloniki, running from Egnatia Street down to the waterfront on Nikis Avenue. It was planned by the French architect Ernest Hébrard after the fire of 1917, but most of it was built in the 1950s, and the twelve buildings framing it, many with arcades at street level, have been listed since 1950.

Hagios Demetrios is the main church of Saint Demetrius, Thessaloniki's patron saint, a five-aisled basilica rebuilt in the 7th century over a Roman bath where the saint is said to have been held and martyred. Destroyed by fire in 1917, it was restored and reopened in 1949. The crypt beneath the sanctuary holds an exhibition of finds from the church.

The Church of the Acheiropoietos is a three-aisled basilica from the 5th century in the centre of Thessaloniki, on Agias Sofias Street. It was the first church in the city to be converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of 1430, and it is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the city's Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments.

Hagia Sophia is a domed Byzantine church in the centre of Thessaloniki, built in the 7th century on the site of an earlier basilica and one of the oldest churches still standing in the city. Its dome keeps a mosaic of the Ascension and its apse a mosaic of the Virgin and Child. It is a working Orthodox church and part of the city's UNESCO-listed monuments.

Hosios David is a small church from the late 5th century in the Upper Town of Thessaloniki, once the katholikon of the Latomos Monastery. Its apse keeps a 5th-century mosaic of Christ in a vision, and frescoes from the 12th century onwards survive on the walls. The church is part of the city's UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Arch of Galerius, known locally as Kamara, is a triumphal arch built around 300 AD to mark the Roman emperor Galerius's victory over the Persians. Its surviving piers are faced with marble reliefs of battles and imperial scenes, and it stands on Egnatia Street on the axis that once linked the Rotunda with Galerius's palace.

The Rotunda is a massive round brick building raised early in the 4th century AD under the Roman emperor Galerius, either as a temple or as his mausoleum. It later became a church and then a mosque, whose minaret still stands beside it, and its dome keeps parts of the early Christian mosaics. It belongs to Thessaloniki's UNESCO-listed early Christian and Byzantine monuments.

The White Tower is a round fortification tower on the Thessaloniki waterfront, built by the Ottomans after they took the city in 1430, probably on the site of an older Byzantine tower. Long used as a prison, it was remodelled and whitewashed in 1912 and now holds an exhibition on the city's history over six floors, with a viewing terrace at the top.

The Heptapyrgion is a Byzantine and Ottoman fortress at the north-eastern corner of the acropolis of Thessaloniki, in the Upper Town. Despite its name, which means "seven towers", it has ten. It was the garrison's stronghold until the late 19th century and then a prison until 1989; restoration work began in the 1970s.