Byzantine Bath (Thessaloniki)

The Byzantine Bath of the Upper City in Thessaloniki is one of the few and best preserved of the Byzantine baths that have survived from the Byzantine period in Greece. It is located on the Theotokopoulou Street in the Upper Old Town of Thessaloniki. The baths date to the late 12th/early 13th century, and functioned continuously until 1940, when they shut down probably due to World War II and the German occupation of Greece. The Byzantine sources do not mention it, hence it is likely that it originally belonged to a monastery complex. In Ottoman times, it was known as Kule Hammam, i.e. "bath of the tower". The bath's long use led to numerous alterations of the original structure over time. The original architecture follows the typical conventions of Roman baths.