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Agios Pavlos · GR

Trigonion Tower

The Trigonion Tower is the great cylindrical keep that caps the northeast corner of Thessaloniki's medieval walls, where the long east rampart turns and climbs toward the old town's acropolis. Raised by the Ottoman authorities in the late 15th century—around the same period as the city's famous White Tower, which held the opposite, seaward end of the same fortifications—it was built as an artillery tower to guard the most vulnerable approach to the city. Today it is a restored, freely open monument and one of the best-loved lookouts in Ano Poli, nicknamed "the balcony of Thessaloniki" for the sweeping view over the city and the Thermaic Gulf. What makes it fascinating is the layers of history packed into a single drum of stone. Excavation showed that this cylindrical tower swallowed up an earlier Byzantine triangular bastion, which had itself replaced a square Roman tower on the same spot; the remnants of those older defenses survive inside the walls and explain the tower's oddly winding internal staircases. Part of the Walls of Thessaloniki, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Trigonion rewards visitors who like both military architecture and postcard panoramas.