Best of European Union » millennium bc http://www.best-of-european-union.eu Travel through the most beautiful places in Europe Sun, 08 Sep 2013 13:36:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6 Athens – one of the noisiest and most important cities in the world | Greece http://www.best-of-european-union.eu/2011/12/28/athens-one-of-the-noisiest-and-most-important-cities-in-the-world-greece/ http://www.best-of-european-union.eu/2011/12/28/athens-one-of-the-noisiest-and-most-important-cities-in-the-world-greece/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:39:02 +0000 Julius http://www.best-of-european-union.eu/?p=5562 On the Attic peninsula, near the Saronic Gulf, you can find the Greek capital Athens. It has about 5 million people, which is almost a quarter of the whole Greek population. Greece’s capital city offers numerous cultural monuments and museums, nightlife and many tourist attractions. A major problem however is considerable traffic and its associated […]

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]]> On the Attic peninsula, near the Saronic Gulf, you can find the Greek capital Athens. It has about 5 million people, which is almost a quarter of the whole Greek population. Greece’s capital city offers numerous cultural monuments and museums, nightlife and many tourist attractions. A major problem however is considerable traffic and its associated smog. And also in these days it is numerous strikes due to financial problems of Greece. But anyway, this beautiful city still worth a visit.

Athens, Greece
Photo licensed under the Creative Commons, created by Bruce Tuten

Athens was allegedly established in the 3rd millennium BC, but according to writings and documentation it was at the beginning of the 8th century BC. Significant development of Athens started in 547 BC during the reign of Peisistratos. At that time he began to build a temple on the Acropolis, which is a flat-topped rock that rises 150 metres above sea level. The temple was dedicated to the goddess Athena.

Democracy reached its peak during the reign of Pericles. In this “golden period” Athens was also home to the philosopher Socrates and many representatives of the ancient tragedy as Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. In 395 the Athens with the whole Greece became a part of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).

New expansion of Athens returned in the 12th century when the Greek population began to come back. In the 15th century, the city came under Ottoman domination of the Turks and rebuilt it in his own image. In 1822, when the War of Independence took place, the Greeks conquered the local Turkish fortress which was built on the Acropolis, and drove the Turks from Athens. Four years