The National Garden of Greece

Have you ever visited the National Garden in Athens? During my first year here, one of my favorite activities was to go there for a walk.

At the beginning, I honestly felt like the Minotaur trying to escape the Labyrinth of Crete. It wasn’t until a couple of months in that I found an area with goats and peacocks. I was pretty amazed, and it seemed like everyday I was discovering a new path.

But let’s discuss this garden’s history.

If you didn’t know, Greece had a monarchy until 1973. And it was way back in 1838 that Queen Amalia decided she wanted a beautiful garden in Athens. She had specialists importing various animals and plants, and the garden was finished in 1840. Back then, this was referred to as the Royal Garden, and it gained quite a reputation in wartimes.

Just after World War I, King Alexander of Greece was working together with significant political leader Eleftherios Venizelos to ensure that Greece would be united in recovering the Byzantine Empire. As allies, Greece, France, and Britain began fighting in the Greco-Turkish War.

But just as things were picking up speed, King Alexander was bitten by a monkey in The Royal Garden and died a few weeks later from sepsis (crazy, right?).

As a result, King Constantine I regained the crown, and Greece became deeply divided between King Constantine I and Eleftherios Venizelos. Slowly but surely, the new king was turning the political staff against Venizelos. When Britain and France got word of the new tension in Greece, they backed away as allies, and Greece was forced to deal with Turkey by themselves, leading to the Great Fire of Smyrna.

Winston Churchill wrote that “it is perhaps no exaggeration to remark that a quarter of a million persons died of this monkey’s bite.” Wow.

Sometimes I walk through the National Garden and admire the hundreds of turtles resting on a rock. Sometimes I walk through the National Garden to just soak up the nature. And sometimes I walk through the National Garden and think about how a monkey bite in that very place led to Greece losing the Greco-Turkish War.