Πύργος, Αρέθουσα, Θεσσαλονίκη

At the edge of a stream, where a small park holds the church of Agios Christophoros, stand the sparse remains of a Late Byzantine tower. Approached from the southwest, just before the village of Arethousa in Thessaloniki’s prefecture, the ruin is so low and so wrapped in bushes that it is effectively invisible until one is upon it. No historical source records its name or story, but its masonry places it among the monastic towers of the region, most plausibly from the second half of the 14th century, and akin to the better-known tower at Vrasna. Only the eastern side survives, less than nine metres long and a metre thick, with the southeast corner rising to 3.5 metres. There, two vertical struts remain, their dimensions uneven, and the walls show a mix of carved and uncut stones bound by mortar. The rest has gone, yet enough hints at a structure once as massive as its Vrasna counterpart.