CHAPTER 24
Our guided tour of Athens continued through the Zappeion Gardens and then onto the Temple of Zeus. The Zappeion, named for its benefactor Evangelos Zappas, a wealthy Greek patriot, was built as the headquarters for the revival of the modern Olympic Games in 1896. Zappas also floated the bill for refurbishing the ancient Panathenian stadium down the road for track and field events, and even left a hansom endowment to keep the games going after he died- needless to say, we probably wouldn’t be celebrating them every two years without this guy. Thanks Zappas!
If only he had shelled out a few bucks to fix up the nearby Temple of Zeus- it used to have 104 columns, but now only 15 stand sentinel over the ruins. Even so, I still think that is pretty impressive considering the temple was started in 520 BC. I’m pretty sure that half of the crap we build here in America will be fallen down and decomposing within a hundred years, let alone two and a half thousand. I guess they just made things better back then…
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