Hello fellows! With 2021 being next door i wanted to share another awesome travel destination in Athens Greece. Before i do so i wanna say a big thanks to all of you who supported my other posts and traveled with me i dare to say.
It really takes time to create this kind of posts and ofc they are one of a kind, cause in some of them i share places that i probably not gonna travel again. You will see my older posts at the end of this one!
Destination and How to go there!
Today we gonna travel together to Tatoi Royal Palace, it may sound awesome, it is awesome but the title is a little bit misleading. You see it used to be a Royal Palace a couple of years ago but now you can't even get inside.
The amazing thing is that you can go for free around the whole property and it a must destination for all the locals when they want to get out of Athens and, have a nice walk in the forest surrounded by historic buildings!
Now as you can see in the image above if you are a tourist and come to Athens then most likely you gonna be living in the center. From there the Royal Palace area is around 40 minutes by car and as you can see you travel a bit outside of Athens.
So 40 minutes by car to go to a place that is completely free of charge!
History
In 1871 king George the first bought land of 20.000 acres in Tatoi. He did so after the architect Ernst Ziller urged him to do so. Ernst had plans to make this land into a huge royal palace but the king wanted this land to become his summer palace.
At first, there was only one building but till 1898 the land grew to 47.427 acres having multiple buildings like a school for the princes, a hotel, a home for the teacher and a couple of more that i am gonna mention later on!
The Royal Palace of Tatoi is divided into 3 different units. The Palace unit, the Administrative unit, and the "village". Because we are too cool to be true we gonna dig right into each and every single unit! If the post ends up quite big then i'll make a part 2!
Palace Unit
Royal Palace
The Royal Palace as we mentioned earlier was built from 1884 to 1886 and the king actually sent the architect to Russia to copy one of the parks and the palace of Peterhof, the Ferme mansion to be exact.
In front of the south side, there is a bronze statue on horseback "Cossack hunter", work of the sculptor Yevgeny Yevgenyevich Lanserai (1848-1886), which Queen Olga had bought and transported from Russia.
Later on, during 1937-1939 king George the second decided to live here in the winter as well so they redeveloped the house in order to have hot water. Then the Germans came and it's pretty much ruined and it rebuilt after they "left", being once again the king's house.
The Kitchens
The kitchens building completed in 1939 and had full and separate cooking and pastry department, staff rooms, and storage areas. Through an underground corridor, they communicate with the palace which also had a full kitchen in the basement.
The Guard's Building
not the actual building but another one i found there!
This building was the replica of a small villa in Bernstorff, Denmark.
Sometimes the school exams of the royal children took place in the hall. It first housed the Tatoi telephone exchange, which was moved from the palace where it was originally located.
The Staff's Building
The staff's building had twelve rooms per floor and a wider one in the center of each floor, which served as a dressing room. At a certain point, it housed the National Agricultural Orphanage of Dhekelia. It was modernized around 1950, with the installation of central heating and the construction of bathrooms on each floor.
Caregiver's Home
It was the residence of the head of the male staff of the palace. In the same place, there used to be a small barracks for the guard of the two palaces.
The "Sturm House"
This is the oldest building in the land dated back to 1874 and the name comes from the Sturm, the Berlin-based agronomist-winemaker who lived with his wife for a long time there.
There is also and an incident that took place in which Sturm's monkey injure king Alexander. It is said that Sturm died from depression from that same incident. He apparently never got over it.
The Βarracks
The barracks were used both for the Evzoni of the Palace Guard and for the gendarmes and other hoplites of the Tatoi guard. From 1983 onwards, the building is used by the association "Friends of the forest".
The Outpost of the Inner Gate
This is the first thing you will see when you get to visit the place. Inside there is a fireplace, and next to the entrance, in the prostyle, a metal arsenal for the men of the Guard.
The Gardener's House
It was supposed to be the gardener's house but apparently, it was used as a house for a Theologian, an accountant, and even used as a school for a little while.
This post became quite long and i both said and showed you only half of it. Some of the photos aren't mine but i took them from wiki or other sources, everything mentioned below so don't worry!
In part 2 i will show more of my photos, we gonna talk about the other 2 unit categories as well as we gonna move forward in history. I will also tell you what locals prefer to do and when they visiting the place. Till then i'll leave you with that image, of a path that leads to an amazing place trust me!
Other Travel Posts
Antonis Tritsis Metropolitan Park