Athens & Around - Greece - page 144

(159-138 BC), served as the first-ever shopping arcade. It has 45 Doric columns on
the ground floor and Ionic columns on the upper. Originally, its facade was painted
red and blue. People gathered here every four years to watch the Panathenaic Pro-
cession.
The excellent Agora Museum , inside the stoa, is a good place to make sense
of the site. It holds a model of the Agora and many outstanding finds, and is sur-
rounded by ancient statues of the gods.
Continue to the southern end of the site to the Church of the Holy Apostles ,
built in the early 10th century to commemorate St Paul's teaching in the Agora.
Between 1954 and 1957 it was stripped of its 19th-century additions and restored
to its original form. It contains fine Byzantine frescoes.
Heading north across the site, you'll pass the circular Tholos where the
heads of government met, and what was the New Bouleuterion (Council
House), where the Senate met.
Go to the western edge of the Agora for the striking Temple of Hephaestus ,
the best-preserved Doric temple in Greece. Dedicated to Hephaestus, god of the
forge, the temple was one of the first of Pericles' projects and was built in 449 BC
by Iktinos, one of the architects of the Parthenon. It has 34 columns and a frieze on
the eastern side depicting nine of the Twelve Labours of Heracles. In AD 1300 it
was converted into the Church of Agios Georgios. The last service was held in 1834
in honour of King Otto's arrival in Athens.
To the northeast of the temple, you'll pass the foundation of the Stoa of Zeus
Eleutherios , one of the places where Socrates expounded his philosophy.
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Southeast of the Acropolis
Temple of Olympian Zeus RUIN
MAP GOOGLE MAP
( 210 922 6330; adult/child €2/free, free with Acropolis pass; 8am-3pm; Syntagma, Ak-
ropoli) You can't miss this striking marvel, smack in the centre of Athens. It is the largest
temple in Greece and was begun in the 6th century BC by Peisistratos, but was aban-
doned for lack of funds. Various other leaders had stabs at completing it, but it was left to
Hadrian to complete the work in AD 131. In total, it took more than 700 years to build.
The temple is impressive for the sheer size of its 104 Corinthian columns (17m high
with a base diameter of 1.7m), of which 15 remain - the fallen column was blown down