Thessaloniki (Photos taken by me)

Day 3,714, 12:22 Published in Greece Greece by Aneta Ilieva

Thessaloniki, also familiarly known as Thessalonica or Salonica, is the second-largest city in Greece, with over 1 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of Macedonia, the administrative region of Central Macedonia and the Decentralized Administration of Macedonia and Thrace.









White Tower of Thessaloniki
The White Tower of Thessaloniki is a monument and museum on the waterfront of the city of Thessaloniki, capital of the region of Macedonia in northern Greece. The present tower replaced an old Byzantine fortification, known to have been mentioned around the 12th century, that the Ottoman Empire reconstructed to fortify the city's harbour sometime after Sultan Murad II captured Thessaloniki in 1430. The tower became a notorious prison and scene of mass executions during the period of Ottoman rule.
The White Tower was substantially remodeled and its exterior was whitewashed after Greece gained control of the city in 1912. It has been adopted as the symbol of the city.
The tower, which once guarded the eastern end of the city's sea walls, was for many years attributed to Venice, to which the Byzantines ceded Thessaloniki in 1423. It is now known that the tower was constructed by the Ottomans sometime after the army of Sultan Murad II captured Thessaloniki in 1430.[1] Until 1912, an inscription in Ottoman Turkish verse above the door dated the structure to AH 942 (1535–1536).
The historian Franz Babinger speculated that the work was designed by the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, who is known to have built fortifications, including a similar tower at the Albanian port Valona in 1537.





The Church of Saint Demetrius
The Church of Saint Demetrius, or Hagios Demetrios dating from a time when it was the second largest city of the Byzantine Empire. It is part of the site Palaeochristian and Byzantine Monuments of Thessaloniki on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO since 1988.
The first church on the spot was constructed in the early 4th century AD, replacing a Roman bath. A century later, a prefect named Leontios replaced the small oratory with a larger, three-aisled basilica. Repeatedly gutted by fires, the church eventually was reconstructed as a five-aisled basilica in 629–634. This was the surviving form of the church much as it is today. The most important shrine in the city, it was probably larger than the local cathedral. The historic location of the latter is now unknown.
The church had an unusual shrine called the ciborium, a hexagonal, roofed structure at one side of the nave. It was made of or covered with silver. The structure had doors and inside was a couch or bed. Unusually, it did not hold any physical relics of the saint. The ciborium seems to have been a symbolic tomb. It was rebuilt at least once.



The Walls of Thessaloniki
The Walls of Thessaloniki are the city walls surrounding the city of Thessaloniki during the Middle Ages and until the late 19th century, when large parts of the walls, including the entire seaward section, were demolished as part of the Ottoman authorities' restructuring of Thessaloniki's urban fabric. The city was fortified from its establishment in the late 4th century B.O.T, but the present walls date from the early Byzantine period, ca. 390, and incorporate parts of an earlier, late 3rd-century wall. The walls consist of the typical late Roman mixed construction of ashlar masonry alternating with bands of brick. The northern part of the walls adjoins the acropolis of the city, which formed a separate fortified enceinte, and within it lies another citadel, the Heptapyrgion (popularly known by its Ottoman name, Yedi Kule).





Toumba Stadium
Toumba Stadium is a football stadium in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is property of P.A.O.K..
The construction started in 1958 and completed in 1959. Patrons on the project were the Ministry of Culture and Sport (Greece) which offered the amount of 1,100,000 drachmas, while the Hellenic National Defence General Staff owned the space and contributed decisively to expropriate it for the stadium.
The then defense minister Georgios Themelis vouched for the expropriation of the area of Toumba Stadium during the Konstantinos Karamanlis government in 1958. The old stadium of PAOK in Fountain Square downtown was expropriated for the construction of the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The architect of the project was Minas Trempelas and the engineer was Antonis Triglianos. Important for its construction was the contribution of the fans, who were invited twice to assist financially through the "Special Fund for the Construction of the New Stadium of PAOK", while some friends of PAOK worked personally during the process of the construction. It was finished on 6 September 1959 as the club's prime sporting venue and served as the home ground for the club's football team, which was participating in the then HFF Panhellenic Championship until today, for the needs of the Superleague Greece, the Greek Football Cup and the European Cups (UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League).
The stadium is located in the district of Toumba in eastern Thessaloniki. Its original capacity was 45,000 until the installation of seating on all stands in 1998, which reduced the capacity to 32,000 (seated). The introduction of security zones in 2000 further reduced the capacity to the current capacity of 28,703 seats. A record attendance of 45,252 has been recorded in a 1st division football match between PAOK and AEK on 19 December 1976. The stadium's official name is simply "PAOK Stadium", however it is commonly referred to as "Toumba" after the district where is located.









Other photos from Thessaloniki