Thessaloniki's 580-Year-Old 'Paradise Baths' Reopen as Cultural Hub After €1.5 Million Restoration

The Bey Hamam, the largest and most significant Ottoman bathhouse complex in the Balkans, has reopened following a two-year, 1.5-million-euro restoration that has transformed the 15th-century monument into a modern cultural hub. Built in 1444 on the orders of Sultan Murad II, the building — long known to locals as the "Paradise Baths" — was the first public structure erected after the Ottoman conquest of Thessaloniki in 1430. It operated continuously as a working bathhouse until 1968, before ...

By ANTHEE CARASSAVA