Explore Athens and around
All roads lead to Sýndagma – you’ll almost inevitably find yourself here sooner or later for the metro and bus connections. Platía Syndágmatos, Constitution Square, to give it its full name, lies roughly midway between the Acropolis and Lykavitós hill. With the Greek Parliament building (the Voulí) on its uphill side, and banks, offices and embassies clustered around, it’s the political and geographic heart of Athens. The square’s name derives from the fact that King Otto was forced by popular pressure to declare a formal constitution for the new Greek state from a palace balcony here in 1844. It’s still the principal venue for mass demonstrations and political rallies.
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The Greek Parliament and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
The Greek Parliament and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
The Voulí, the Greek National Parliament, presides over Platía Syndágmatos from its uphill (east) side. A vast, ochre-and-white Neoclassical structure, it was built as the royal palace for Greece’s first monarch, the Bavarian King Otto, who moved in 1842. In front of it, goose-stepping evzónes in tasselled caps, kilt and woolly leggings – a prettified version of traditional mountain costume – change their guard at regular intervals before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. On Sundays, just before 11am, a full band and the entire corps parade from the tomb to their barracks at the back of the National Gardens to the rhythm of innumerable camera shutters.
