Athens, Bus Tour

Athens is the capital of Greece. It is located in the historical region of Attica and is the economic, cultural and administrative center of the country. The city is named after the goddess of war and wisdom, Athena, who was the patron of the ancient polis. Athens has a rich history; in the classical period (5th century BC), the city-state reached the pinnacle of its development, defining many trends in the development of later European culture. Thus, the names of the philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who laid the foundations of European philosophy, the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, who stood at the origins of drama, are associated with the city; the political system of ancient Athens was democracy. One of the most ancient cities in the world. In ancient times, the name “Athens” was in the plural. There are several hypotheses about the origin of the name. One of them goes back to the myth that the city received the name of the goddess of wisdom - Athena - after a dispute between Athena and the ruler of the seas, Poseidon. The first legendary king of Athens, Cecrops, who was half man and half serpent, had to decide who would be the patron of the city. Two gods - Athena and Poseidon - were supposed to give a gift to the city and its citizens, and the one who gave the best gift became the patron of the city. Then Poseidon was the first to strike with his trident in front of Cecrops, and immediately a spring gushed out of the ground. Greece is a hot, mountainous country, water is needed there, but it turned out to be sea and salty. After Athena's blow, a small olive tree grew from the ground. The townspeople were impressed by Athena's gift and chose her as the city's patron. Thus Athens took the name of the great goddess. But since the city did not choose Poseidon, Athens began to run out of water. This shortage continues to this day.
Another version says: the word Athena comes from the word “Athos”, which is similar to the word “flower”.
In 1833, Athens was proclaimed the capital of the newly created Kingdom of Greece (at that time 5 thousand people lived in the city). In 1834, the new Greek king, Otto of Bavaria, arrived in Athens. The young king had ambitions to rebuild the city and return it to its former greatness. Invited to Athens, Leo von Klenze and Theophil von Hansen built several main streets in the neoclassical style, including Syntagma Square, the University of Athens, the National Park, and the Zappion Exhibition Hall. In 1896, the first modern Olympic Games were held in the restored Panathinaikos stadium, built of solid marble. At the beginning of the 20th century, archaeological and restoration work intensified. According to the London and Bucharest Peace Treaties of 1913, concluded as a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, Greece almost doubled its territory and population, and Athens very soon took its rightful place among European capitals. In the 1920s, the city's population grew to 2 million people. According to the Greek-Turkish agreement on population exchange, Christians from Asia Minor moved to Greece.
During World War II, Athens was occupied by German troops. However, after the war, Athens, as in Greece as a whole, began a period of accelerated development, which lasted until the 1980s, when the problem of overpopulation in the capital and the problem of transport first made themselves felt. Greece's accession to the EU in 1981 brought Athens not only enormous investments, but also a number of urban-ecological problems. Throughout the 1990s, city authorities successfully introduced modern measures to combat smog, as a result in the city, smog today does not appear even at air temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. The transport situation has improved somewhat with the reconstruction of existing and construction of new highways, and on the eve of the 2004 Olympics - a new metro line.

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