Vize

Vize lies in eastern Thrace, between the approaches to Constantinople and the Balkan interior. Its fortifications and religious buildings preserve traces of the town's Byzantine past, while surrounding fields and woodland supported rural communities.

During the later medieval centuries, Thrace was contested as Ottoman power expanded and Byzantine authority receded. Within Vize's walls stands a Byzantine church later converted into a mosque under Ottoman rule, now known as the Gazi Süleyman Paşa Mosque or Little Hagia Sophia. Its changing use preserves a tangible connection between the town's Byzantine and Ottoman periods.