Botanical Gardens

When I have a free day, I try to do what I ask my students to do, which is to stretch out of their comfort zone, so I try to explore some part of Athens that I've never seen.  Today while on the Metro (not yet sure where I was going) I decided on Gazi. There is the Benaki Museum Annex, the Technopolis, and according to my map, a botanical garden.  The neighborhood in general is supposed to be a really lively place at night, one of these gentrified industrial areas.  Perfect.

The Technopolis was interesting, and I stopped in the small empty museum of the gas works to learn about how coal gas was the main power in Greece from the 1860s to the 1950s, and was used right through the 1970s.  Electricity came to Greece in 1889, but only for the king's palace, and it wasn't until the 1950s that there was a national electric system.  Coal gas was used for lighting (old gas lamps), cooking, and heating.  It was also a common method of suicide until the 1970s.  The gas works finally closed in the 1980s and then recently was turned into an entertainment venue.

Next stop, Benaki Museum Annex.  Except that the Benaki is closed Mon-Weds (my fault, I relied on an old guidebook).  So I decided to visit the botanical garden, which I could just see on the edge of my map.  I found the right street, proud of my map skills, and was faced with a bus parking lot.  I walked around, confused, as I couldn't reconcile what I was seeing with my map.  I walked right off the edge of the map into unknown territory, trying to find it.  Remembering what I ask of my students, I decided I would not give up, but ask someone.  Five people got involved in the lively conversation, arguing about whether to send me left or right and what was the quickest way.  They were surprised when they realized I was walking, not driving, and one guy offered to drive me.  It was less than a mile, so I declined, got directions (turn at the green shade and then walk until the traffic light), and set off, quite pleased with myself.  The directions were good and soon I was at a fence with many trees inside.  There was a locked gate, so I kept going, turning a corner to follow the fence, and came across two more locked gates.  Finally, finally, I found an open gate to the Athens Agricultural University.  I asked the guard if the garden was open, and he told me that the botanical garden was much further up the road (miles) in the neighborhood of Chaidari, well past where the line metro ends (Aegaleo).  Totally confused, I finally left.

I was not crazy.  The neighborhood is called Botanic, as is this nightclub.

One of the locked gates.

It looks lovely inside, though very unkempt and clearly abandoned.

A clue:  a tree with a name plaque.

Winding pathways!

Figs peeping out the fence.

I really want to enter.

Returning home, I investigated and learned that the neighborhood is called Botanikos because in 1838 Queen Amalia opened a botanical garden there on the site of the estate of an infamous late 18th century Turkish Voivode, Hadji Ali Haseki.  This guy built the city walls, using a lot of ancient building materials, and also taxed the Christian populations so heavily that the complained to Istanbul and eventually he was beheaded, but not before he threw a lot of Greeks in prison (Waterfield).  The garden eventually became a part of the Agricultural University of Athens, but seems to be largely abandoned right now, and certainly closed to the public.

I love the way history is written into the landscape through place names.  It is the experience of a foreigner who reads place names literally to want to find the botanikos for which the neighborhood is named, but most local people just read them as place names, not descriptors.  Most people in Jacksonville don't look for a bay on Bay Street (would it be tree or water?) or wonder which university inspired University Blvd...  I am now wondering what the neighborhood residents who helped me find it thought I was looking for.  No one asked my why I wanted to go there. Did they know it was closed? It looked like it had been closed a long time, and the new one in Chaidari has been open since the 1970s.  No one ever suggested (as the guard hard) that I had the right street but was off by several miles.  I might have confused them, too, as I showed them my map that had it listed, so maybe they thought it was a garden they'd just never ventured into.  A fun adventure/mystery for me.  Total step count today:  23349, which is 9.33 miles!

Waterfield, Robin. Athens: A History: From Ancient Ideal to Modern City.  New York:  Basic Books, 2005.