Designed by Amalia, the first Queen of Greece, it is an oasis in Central Athens
Address: East of Vasilissis Amalias, between Vasilissis Olgas and Vasilissis Sofias; Tel: 210 721-5019.Open: Monday to Sunday, 7:00 a.m. to sunset
The National Garden (formerly the Royal Garden) (Greek: Εθνικος Κηπος) is a peaceful, green refuge of 15.5 hectares in the center of the Greek capital. It is located directly behind the Greek Parliament building (The Old Palace) and continues to the south to the area where the Zappeion is located, across from the Panathenaiko or Kalimarmaro Olympic Stadium of the 1896 Olympic Games. The Garden also encloses some ancient ruins, tambours and Corinthian capitals of columns, mosaics, and other features. On the south-east there are the busts of Capodistrias, the first governor of Greece and of the great Philhellene, Eynard, and on the south side of the celebrated Greek poets Dionysios Solomos, author of the Greek National Hymn, and Aristotelis Valaoritis.
Henry Miller wrote in 1939
“It remains in my memory like no other park I have known. It is the quintessence of a park, the thing one feels sometimes in looking at a canvas or dreaming of a place one would like to be in and never finds.”