Photos: Pinelopi Gerasimou

The Athens First Cemetery is the oldest cemetery of the modern city. First activities in the area began in 1834.

Here many great and famous Greeks are resting, but also ordinary Athenian citizens. It is a wooded area of pines and cypresses, full of marble and metal sculptures, busts and votive offerings, some of excellent technique and beauty, to emerge through dense foliage covering tombs, that are so old and lot of them forgotten from time and people, that look almost like archaic ruins in the eyes of the younger, but also like dark paths to follow towards the Hereafter for the lonely wanderer.

One of the most famous tombs of the First Cemetery is this of a young girl Sophia Afentaki, adorned by the famous marble sculpture of Giannoulis Halepas named Sleeping Lady.The Sleeping Lady recently has been decided to permanently transferred to the National Sculpture Gallery. At the grave a copy of the sculpture will be placed.