Otto’s Athens

Queen Amalia loved gardening and made efforts to plant trees in the streets of Athens. Today’s Amalias Avenue was roughly laid out during Otto’s reign […]

Apart from conversation and social contacts, the Athenian cafes served many functions. They were political party centres and places where aspiring ministers presented their programs […]

Within a few years of the start of the landscaping work, the Royal Garden had transformed an arid and barren landscape into an earthly paradise […]

Amalia was very fond of palm trees. Dozens of trees weighing many tons arrived in Piraeus by boat and travelled to Athens by cart, which […]

Some Bavarians opposed the demolition of the mediaeval monuments on the Acropolis. The destruction of these picturesque remains deprived the city of something irreplaceable. The […]

The archaeological excavations at the Acropolis began in the summer of 1834 with the removal of Byzantine, Frankish and Ottoman fortifications. However, the main problem […]

Immediately after the city’s liberation, the mosque in the centre of the Parthenon became a barracks for a Bavarian company with a few cannons. Otto’s […]

In many homes with no musical instruments, the guests whistled to help each other dance. The more affluent Athenians tried to provide their households with […]

Not all Athenians had fun in the same way. Working-class people usually attended dances in the countryside with a particular preference for folk dances like […]

Athens’s rapid urban and population development inevitably affected the physical remains of the city’s classical past and introduced a new repertoire of sounds. The burble […]

Cries of pain and anger were a familiar evening sound in Otto’s Athens. The first oil lanterns were installed in 1835, but they cast a […]

Apart from the people, the streets of Athens were full of animals, but fate often played cruel games. Passers-by were constantly confronted with dead crows, […]

One of the sounds many visitors to Athens missed was the water of the river Illissus, which flowed next to the Temple of Olympian Zeus. […]

The Temple of Olympian Zeus area was a popular destination for those keen to take a walk, but both lonely visitors and groups of friends […]

The Royal Garden grew in a barren piece of land on the city’s outskirts. The tireless efforts of Queen Amalia and her gardeners managed to […]

In 1852, a natural disaster of unnatural intensity struck Athens. The storm made all the houses creak, knocked down chimneys, shattered shutters and carried off […]

Under the cheerful sounds of the polonaise, the guests of Otto and Amalia filled the palace halls with their majestic uniforms and fancy toilets. The […]

The official dances in the palace allowed the royal couple and their guests to have a good time and escape the monotony of daily life. […]

The part of Ermou Street between Kapnikarea and Syntagma Square has always been the most elegant, with shops catering to the upper class of Athenians. […]

New Year’s Eve was the occasion for a prolonged revelry. The Athenians locked their houses and gathered on Ermou Street to spend the whole day […]

The church of the Gorgoepikoos was built in the 12th century. It became a library in the early years of Otto’s reign. In 1861, there […]

One of the most heartbreaking sounds that passers-by heard in Otto’s Athens was the faint cries of infants in the arms of ragged women begging […]

Piraeus Street was broad and beautiful but could quickly become a nightmare. An inexperienced driver could panic and lose control of the cart, threatening to […]

In a country without roads, visitors usually arrived by sea. The route from Piraeus to Athens was one of the first to be built in […]

Mount Lycabettus was a perennial favourite landmark of Athens. The pointed peak with the small church of Agios Georgios that crowns it offers spectacular views […]

The celebration of Independence Day on March 25 was first established in 1838. The official Thanksgiving took place in Agia Irini in the presence of […]

The intersection of the main streets of Aiolou and Ermou was the centre of the city’s commercial and social life. It was home to various […]

Many veteran fighters of the Greek Revolution retired to Athens to enjoy the final years of their lives. The Coffee House of the Fighters in […]

Apart from the happy voices of the visitors, the Acropolis also reverberated with the loud raspy signature calls of the crows, which nested among the […]

The city fell quiet in the afternoon as the heat forced the Athenians to search for coolness and shade inside. Only the cicadas’ mating call […]

The Arvanites of Athens used to celebrate with open-air dances near the temple of Theseus. On Easter Tuesday, 1836, two thousand people gathered there. They […]

To prevent the participation of Greece in the Crimean War, the British and the French occupied Piraeus. Initially, the allied officers enjoyed pleasant evenings dining […]

Athens suffered from a terrible lack of water. Interruptions in water supply from ancient aqueducts were frequent, while the water became very scarce during prolonged […]

One of the most unusual sounds in Athens during the first years of Otto’s reign was the grunt of countless camels that walked the city’s […]

The Athenians considered the street both a living room and a bedroom. Most of their lives took place outside the house. Men spent all day […]

The Royal Stables were built in 1835 and provided facilities for King Otto’s horses and carriages. The complex was located across the street from the […]

The Kontostavlos residence (it occupied the site of today’s Old Parliament) was among the largest and most comfortable houses in Athens. It served as the […]

The banks of the river Ilissos were a small green oasis in the arid and dusty Attic landscape. The river was little more than a […]

Otto’s Athens was an international society, which became evident during the royal dances, attended by representatives from almost every nation imaginable. Some guests spent the […]

The 3 September 1843 Revolution was the most decisive event of Otto’s reign. The earliest eyewitness accounts claimed that the people gathered in front of […]

The construction of the Metropolis began in 1842. Unfortunately, there was not enough money to proceed with the project, so the government decided to demolish […]

The Elaionas was a vast forest of olive trees (about 150,000 olive trees) on the banks of the river Cephissus. Unfortunately, thousands of olive trees […]

The traveller who took Piraeus Street came in contact with an Athens substantially different from the one we know today. Most carts and carriages were […]

The Boukouras Theatre was the only winter theatre in Athens for many decades. It was inaugurated with Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” in January 1840. The […]

Otto’s new palace (present-day Parliament Building) was founded on January 25, 1834. Architect Friedrich von Gärtner offered the king the palace plans wrapped in foil […]

Loudovikou Square (today’s Kotzia Square) hosted almost all of the kingdom’s artillery. According to French journalist Edmond About, there was a hangar to shelter the […]

Hans Christian Andersen visited the theatre in Athens but was not particularly interested in operas. An Italian company presented a medley of Italian operas (including […]

Loudovikou Square (today’s Kotzia Square) was named in honour of King Otto’s father. The square was created because the presence of streams made it impossible […]

King Otto arrived in Athens on December 1st, 1834. The local notable I. Vlachos offered him salt and bread, and then the new king attended […]

Otto loved the theatre and attended performances as often as he could. Choices, of course, were not always first-rate. The theatre usually hosted little-known lyrical […]

The first guards of the Acropolis were hired in 1834. Until then, the monument was exposed to all kinds of looting. Each time an English […]

In public, the Athenians usually smoked cigarettes without hesitation about where they would light them. Foreigners usually could afford to buy cigars imported from Malta […]

The koutsavakides were a typical feature of the Athenian underworld, easily recognisable by their appearance: greasy and unkempt hair, a black jacket with only one […]

The Green Tree (Zum Grüner Baum) brought a touch of Bavaria to Athens. It was located at the intersection of Hiera Odos and Megalou Alexandrou […]

The Coffee House of Europe on Aiolou Street (opposite the church of Agia Irini) was the most elegant in Athens. In contrast to the Turkish […]

There was a Turkish vineyard on Patission Street, where the Athens Polytechnic now stands. A Bavarian couple bought it with financial assistance from a Swiss […]

Amalia’s great passion was horseback riding. Dressed like an Amazon in a costume that even the most elegant Parisians would envy, the queen left the […]

The population of Athens increased tenfold during the reign of Otto (from 4,000 to over 40,000 inhabitants), but the city remained small compared to other […]

The fountain at Dimopratiriou Square at Monastiraki was built in 1852 to beautify the square and provide water in an emergency. In addition, the site […]

In 1835, there were two primary schools in Athens with about eighty students. But the teaching conditions were almost inhumane. According to a journalist of […]

The soft breeze blowing through the columns of the Parthenon at sunset helped visitors forget the echo of the horrifying cries that once emanated from […]

The coffee shops of Athens were full of idle armed men. Wrapped in smoke and the sound of conversations by the other patrons, these men […]

The rustling of the fustanella and the sound of tsarouchia in the cobbled alleys of Plaka became rarer as the Athenians replaced the traditional costumes […]

Byzantine chants and market noises melded in the church of Panagia Kapnikarea on Ermou Street. King Ludwig I of Bavaria intervened to save the church […]

Many parts of modern Athens were unrecognisable during the years of Otto. The tranquillity of the Roman Agora would seem utterly foreign to the Athenians […]

The madrasa (Muslim religious school) was founded in 1721 and suffered significant damage during the Greek War of Independence. During the reign of King Otto, […]

The sound of the hammer beating against the stones characterises the Athens of King Otto’s reign as architects and folk builders worked day and night […]