travelguide TILMPE May. 2015 | Page 17

AMYNTAIO SIGHTS Amyndeo Amyntaio (Αμύνταιο) is a town and municipality in the Florina regional unit of Macedonia. It Is a very small town (3636 citizens (2001), with around 20 villages nearby. The municipal unit of Amyntaio is divided into the following communities: Agios Panteleimonas, Amyntaio, Kella, Kleidi, Petres, Rodonas, Fanos and Xino Nero. Archaeological excavations On March 4, 2007, an unknown civilization around four lakes that lasted from 6000 BC to 60 BC has been uncovered in two important excavations of a Neolithic and an Iron Age settlement in the Amyntaio district of Florina, northern Greece. Thessaloniki has been a commercial centre during the ages of the Byzantine Empire, and thus is closely connected to Christian Orthodox tradition. There are many byzantine monuments in Thessaloniki, such as the White Tower, which was used as a fortress and generally all the walls and towers from the era of Constantine the Great onwards. There are numerous byzantine churches still in existence, all of which are among the monuments of the World Heritage Catalogue of UNESCO. Some notable churches from the byzantine ages are that of Hagia Sofia (i.e. The Church of the Wisdom of God) and the basilica of Saint Demetrius. All these byzantine church