Athens, the National Garden

National Park is a park area of ​​15.5 hectares in the center of Athens and adding garden Zappeion with an area of ​​13 hectares the park has an area of ​​28.5 hectares (285 acres). The first name until 1974 was "Royal Garden". The park is located next to the Greek Parliament and extends to the south where the Zappeion opposite the Stadium took place where the first Modern Olympic Games in 1896. The Garden also encloses some ancient ruins, columns, mosaics, etc. In the south-east are the busts of Capodistrias, high Fillelinon Eynard and on the south side the bust of the national poet Dionysios Solomos and Aristotle Valaoritis. Henry Miller wrote for the National Garden in 1939: "The park is still in my memory like no other park I've visited in my life. The quintessence of a park is like when someone looks like a table or dream, is in one place but it can never go".

The Royal Gardens was defined in 1836 by Frederick Gkairtner (Friedrich von Gaertner), the architect of the palace in an area of ​​approximately 500 acres. Because the land was foreclosed the way Athens-Kifissia, Maroussi, the plan was revised in 1839 by Choch (Hoch), chief engineer of the construction of the palace.

The first Planters operations organized and overseen by the Bavarian agronomist Smarat (Smarat) in 1839, where 15000 planted ornamental plants shipped from Genoa, as well as wild species, moved from Cape Sounion and Evia the Prussian agronomist Frederick Schmidt (Friedrich Schmidt), assistant Smarat.

The garden has continued to expand, and for this purpose invited the Frenchman Francois Louis Bar gardening (François Louis Bareaud), who took over the direction of the garden from 1845 until 1854.

Barry succeeded Frederick Schmidt, who ran the garden for 30 years, bringing from abroad many plants suitable for the climate of Athens, completing the planting of the garden to its present boundaries.

(from Wikipedia)