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Hadrian’s gate, in front of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, a monument by a grateful city to the emperor that rebuilt her. Hence the inscription on either side of the gate, in elegant Greek capitals that I can just about convince myself I can read on the Temple-facing side: Facing the old Athens of the […]

The Temple of Olympian Zeus was supposed to be the biggest Ancient Greek temple ever: it took 600 years to build, and was ruined in a barbarian raid a century later. What remains of it are a seventh of its columns, most of them now in scaffolding. The columns tower over the highway right next […]

The Zappeion, Zappas Hall, Athens Exhibition Centre, is not named for Frank Zappa, but for national benefactors Evangelos and Konstantinos Zappas. (The cousins were from what is now Southern Albania, and their surname is Zhapa in Albanian; so the similarity with Frank is coincidental.) The gardens of the Zappeion were a gay beat, which made […]

The Greek Parliament. It started life out as the royal palace, and it is a stately, reassuring presence in the city, even if it attracts permanent aggravation from its citizenry. In theory, the central point of Athens is the square that Parliament faces, Syntagma (Constitution Square, because King Otto was forced at gunpoint to adopt […]