Lets walk around Athens

Summary

• Syntagma Square
• The Parliament
• The Change of Guards
• The National Garden
• The Presidential Residence

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• The Olympic Stadium
• The Temple of Zeus
• Hadrian’s Arch
• The Promenade (Dionysiou Areopagitou)
• Hadrian’s Library

Syntagma square is our starting point and the “centre point” of the city for the Athenians (‘kentro’ in greek). The building that dominates the square is the Parliament of Greece, the heart of greek political life. This is one of the interesting 19th century monuments of Athens relating to king Otto, the first king of modern greek history. Standing in the square we will be surrounded by many historical buildings before we move towards the Parliament to witness the change of guards, which takes place every hour, on the hour.

A leisurely walk through the “coolest spot” in Athens comes next. The national garden is teemed with statues, ruins and of course amazing flora. We will focus on the mythology relating to greek flowers, trees and shrubs.

Our next stops are the Presidential Residence and the spectacular marble Stadium (keep in mind that we can always enter and visit minor archaeological or historical sites as long as you are willing to pay their entrance fees). This Stadium was built in 1896 to house the first modern Olympics and is really spectacular resembling an ancient greek stadium.

The gigantic Temple of Zeus, the most powerful greek god, is next on my list. It is the largest temple ever to be built in Greece and we owe this to the handsome roman Emperor Hadrian that ruled in the 2nd century AD. Hadrian’s Arch, next to the temple, is one of the landmarks of Athens and the gift of the Athenians to Hadrian for embellishing their city.