History
The area was once composed mainly of farmland, and mixed farming was common. Much of the agricultural production at the time was from various pastures and groves in the area, and urban development replaced much of the farmland in the 1920s and the 1930s; today, most of the municipality is urbanized or residential. The area is hilly to the north, and also has includes a few hilltops which run east to Hymettus. Most of its industrial buildings and businesses, along with shopping outlets, are aligned within Poseidonos Avenue and other main streets, and Palaio Faliro 2004 is linked by a tramway which is not connected with any road, and serves as the northernmost terminus. The streambed includes the Pikrodafni.
Palaio Faliro has beaches within the Saronic Gulf mainly in the western area. The yacht harbour (Marina Alimou) with several piers lies to the south east, while the Trokadero harbour lies to the northwest.
On January 25, 2005, a 1.8 m tall marble torso of a young man was found in the Pikrodafni streambed at the intersections of Pikrodafnis and Dimokratias Streets. The statue dates back to the 1st century A.D., and was a copy of a 4th century BC classical original that may depict Apollo Lykeios. Construction workers working on the site discovered the statue, but dumped it into the streambed, fearing that archaeologists might call for a halt to any construction work if something of archaeological or historical significance was discovered.
Recently, archaeologists in the capital’s southern coastal suburb of Palaio Faliro have uncovered what appear to be traces of ancient Athens’s first port before the city’s naval and shipping center was moved to Piraeus. This is a port associated with two myths — Theseus and the Argonauts — and a historic event, the Trojan War.
The site, some 350 m from the modern coastline, contained pottery, tracks from the carts that would have served the port, and makeshift fireplaces where travelers waiting to take ship would have cooked and kept warm.
At Aiantos 26, corner of Aiantos and Spartis, is the 1st SeaScout Group of Paleo Faliro.
Palaio Faliro also has an A1 water polo team named AC Palaio Faliro. It also has a basketball team that belongs to the same club.
Read more about this topic: Palaio Faliro
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“It’s not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)