Cultural Route public bus tour

Excavations and an interesting museum underneath.

Started life as a Roman temple of Zeus, built by Caesar Galerius, and is almost as old as the Pantheon in Rome. The monument has a diameter of 24.5 m and its dome reaches a height of 30 m. It was converted into a Christian church during the Early Christian era, and its interior was decorated with magnificent mosaics. However some inside frescoes are a work of the British artist Alexander Rossi (1840-1916). In 1591 the Rotunda was converted into a mosque, and a tall minaret still stands beside the monument. Frequent earthquakes from the early 7ᵗʰ century until 1978 caused several damage. The latter caused the destruction of the dome section. After being restored, the monument reopened to the public in 1998.

Constructed in the mid-7th century on the ruins of a Roman bath complex, in honor of Demetrius, a Roman officer who was imprisoned and martyred here in 303 AD. An earlier small church, built on the site of martyrdom, burned down during the earthquake of 620 and a new large basilica was erected at expenses of Leontius, the Byzantine prefect of Illyricum and the Bishop of Thessaloniki. The new church of S. Demetrios became one of the most famous centres of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians until its Muslim conversion in 1492. In the Great Fire of Thessaloniki of 1917 the basilica was gutted. The work of restructuring the church lasted fifty years. Most of the ancient mosaics in the western wall and in the inner central aisle survived the heat from the fire.

A 5th-century church. The surviving original decoration includes fine 5th-century Ionian capitals, the green Thessalian marble columns of the tribelon and fragments of 5th-century decorative mosaics. Early 13th-century frescoes adorn the southern side.

A church from the 7th century, based on the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, with mosaics from the 9th century.