WHITE TOWER

Thessaloniki's most famous monument, this mighty Ottoman tower (Λευκός Πύργος/Lefkos Pyrgos) stands on the waterfront between the historic center and the eastern suburbs. Built of ashlar and 34 m high, it is part of the Unesco site of the "Walls of Thessaloniki". The structure consists of a crenellated cylinder 23 m in diameter and 28 m high, topped by a turret (inaccessible) 12 m in diameter and 6 m high. The interior houses a small museum on the city's history, of varying interest on each of the six floors (staircases only). The platform offers lovely views of the gulf. Be careful, however, not to lean between the crenellations: it's not safe! The origins of the tower are not well known: it may have been erected on the site of a Byzantine tower circa 1450 or 1540, but it occupied a strategic position at the junction of the eastern wall (partly preserved) and the seafront wall (destroyed between 1873 and 1911). As for its name, it dates back to 1912, when the town became part of Greece: the outer walls were symbolically whitewashed to erase the former nickname of... "blood tower". In the ^19th century, the building was used as a prison. One episode in particular left a lasting impression: the massacre of the Janissaries. In June 1826, hundreds of soldiers from the former elite corps of the Ottoman army were killed here on the orders of the sultan, and their blood is said to have covered the walls of the tower.