View business directory The MUNICIPAL GARDEN of DRAMA - Greece

Drama municipality

Drama Old Town

Drama municipality

Drama Old Town

Culture Centre_Elepherias

Drama municipality

Culture Centre_Elepherias

Drama Municipality

Classical Building in Drama

Drama municipality

View of Drama

The MUNICIPAL GARDEN of DRAMA

The MUNICIPAL GARDEN of DRAMA is on the recommended list of places to visit in the City's cultural tour. The garden is a remnant of the large forests that covered the region in ancient times and is mainly characterized by its abundance of water and its age-old plane trees. When the Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi visited the town in the 17th century, he was impressed by the water sources that sprung from the earth among huge plane trees near the “Eski cami” (now Hagios Nikolaos). He writes: “Nowhere else is there such a region full of springs and ponds, neither in Rumelia (country of the Romans) nor in Persia, in Balkh (formerly Bactria in Afghanistan), in Bukhara, in Khorasan, or in Germany. A hundred springs spout up crystal clear water, and from large ponds it flows into smaller ones. The water that comes out of these heavenly springs is very tasty, but also so cold that it is difficult to drink, even in July… All around, there are plane and other trees providing deep shade. In the tree branches nest thousands and thousands of colorful birds that sing delightfully…”
Until the second decade of the 20th century the garden was fenced and inside it there were garden cafés, where various local and touring orchestras used to play. In the area behind the Xenia hotel, during the latest Bulgarian occupation, two basins (swimming pools) were built for the residents to row small boats or swim in. On the North side of the garden, till the early 1960s, there were also two covered markets. The Ethniki Amyna main street (on the East side of the garden) used to be lined with rustic taverns and openair cinemas; before the war it was shaded by very tall trees and paved with cobble-stones. On the East side of the Municipal Garden, stands the statue of Liberty, work of sculptor L. Lameras and of architect I. N. Chalepas, dedicated to the liberation of the town on 1st July 1913. The pedestal features engraved the first lines of the Greek national anthem.