The Plane Trees of Zappeion

Almost two hundred plane trees went into the ground around the Zappeion in 1857, two decades before the neoclassical hall they now surround had even been designed. The gardens predate their own centrepiece building, laid out first in a formal French geometric style and later softened into looser English-style plantings, with eucalyptus imported from Australia joining the original planes early on. The Zappeion itself, completed in 1888, went on to host fencing at the first modern Olympics in 1896 and, decades later, the signing of Greece's accession treaty to the European Communities in 1979, so its plane-lined approach has watched two very different kinds of history. Oriental plane is the tree most associated with Greek public space generally, prized for a canopy dense enough to cool a whole square and bark that flakes away in patches, shedding pollution and disease along with it. Most of the original 1857 trees have since been replaced or supplemented after a century and a half of storms and old age, so what stands today is a mixed-generation avenue rather than a single dateable planting, honestly closer to 60 to 165 years old tree by tree. The gardens are free and open daily, a short walk from Syntagma Square through the adjoining National Garden.