Tuesday, September 8, 2009

White Tower of Thessaloniki


fter the history lesson... time for sightseing.
Come with me for a walk around the most famous places in Thessaloni and let's start from the White Tower of Thessaloniki (Lefkos Pyrgos in Greek language).
It is a monument and museum on the waterfront of the city of Thessaloniki, capital of the region of Macedonia in northern Greece. It has been adopted as the symbol of the city, and also as a symbol of Greek sovereignty over Macedonia.

The present tower dates from the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–66). There was an older tower on the same site, probably built by French knights during the period of the Latin Empire in Constantinople . The Tower was used by the Ottomans successively as a fort, garrison and a prison. In 1826, at the order of the Sultan Mahmud II , there was a massacre of the prisoners in the Tower. Owing to the "countless victims of Ottoman torturers and executioners", the tower acquired the name "Tower of Blood" or "The Red Tower", which it kept until the end of the 19th century.

No comments:

Post a Comment