ΟΔΗΓΟΣ ΔΥΤΙΚΗΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΣ ΟΔΗΓΟΣ - ΔΥΤΙΚΗ ΑΘΗΝΑ ΑΤΤΙΚΗ | Página 55

Ελληνικό Δίκτυο ΦΙΛΟΙ της ΦΥΣΗΣ 53 “Diomedes” Botanical Garden, at the end of the Sacred Way, a little before Daphni Monastery. “Julia and Alexander N. Diomedes” Botanical garden, on the Sacred Way - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens 403 Hiera Odos, 210 5811557 It was created in 1951 based on the design of Herta Hammerbacher and it is the biggest botanical garden of Eastern Mediterranean. It spreads over 1,860 acres also boasting parts of local history. Hiding in the lush vegetation are stretches of the ancient Sacred Way, ancient quarries, old lime kilns and pillboxes. Its cultivated part showcases an ecosystem of over 500 plant species, both local and foreign, rendering the garden very rare and significant. In the outer limits of the Garden we can admire one of the oldest forests of Pinus Halepensis in Attica. The Diomedes Garden is a Historical Memory Site. Germans executed there 59 Greek patriots, just a few months before their army retreated from the country, on September 8, 1944. Among the dead, heroic resistance fighters Lela Karagianni and Manolis Litinas.