Temples of Greek Gods and more

The Ancient Greeks knew how to choose a site for a temple. At Cape Sounion, 70km south of Athens, the Temple of Poseidon stands on a craggy spur that plunges 65m to the sea. Built in 444 BC – same year as the Parthenon – of marble from nearby Agrilesa, it is a vision of gleaming white columns. Sailors in ancient times knew they were nearly home when they saw the first glimpse of white; views from the temple are equally impressive.

It is thought that the temple was built by Iktinos, the architect of the Temple of Hephaistos in Athens' Ancient Agora. Sixteen of the slender Doric columns remain. The site also contains scant remains of a propylaeum, a fortified tower and, on a lower hill to the northeast, a 6th-century temple to Athena.

Source: Lonely planet

A can't-miss on two counts: Temple of Olympian Zeus , a marvellous temple, once the largest in Greece, and it's smack in the centre of Athens. Of the temple's 104 original Corinthian columns (17m high with a base diameter of 1.7m), only 15 remain – the fallen column was blown down in a gale in 1852.
Begun in the 6th century BC by Peisistratos, the temple was abandoned for lack of funds. Various other leaders took a stab at completing it, but it was left to Hadrian to finish the job in AD 131, thus taking more than 700 years in total to build. In typically immodest fashion, Hadrian built not just a colossal statue of Zeus, but an equally large one of himself.
Source : Lonely planet

With its serried rows of white Pentelic marble seats built into a ravine next to Ardettos Hill, this ancient-turned-modern Panathenaic stadium is a draw both for lovers of classical architecture and sports fans who can imagine the roar of the crowds from millennia past

The stadium – built in the 4th century BC and restored for the first modern Olympic games in 1896 – was first used as a venue for the Panathenaic athletic contests. It's said that at Hadrian's inauguration in AD 120, a thousand wild animals were sacrificed in the arena. Later, the seats were rebuilt in marble by Herodes Atticus.

Source: Lonely planet

Built between 1836 and 1842 by Bavarian architect Friedrich von Gärtner, Greece's Parliament was originally the royal palace. From its balcony, the syntagma (constitution) was declared on 3 September 1843, and in 1935 the palace became the seat of parliament.

Athens Academy ,this ornate building, completed in 1885 and modelled on Plato's Academy, is Greece's most prestigious research institution. It was designed by Theophil Hansen, brother of Christian Hansen, responsible for the other two in the 'trilogy' of neoclassical buildings in a line a here. The Ionian-style entrance mimics the eastern entrance to the Erechtheion, the temple on the north side of the Acropolis.

Source : Lonely Planet

May 2017
Athens, Greece

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