The SNFCC: Renzo Piano and Faliro Bay
The great canopy, the Library and Opera beneath it, the rooftop, and the seawater canal down to the bay. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. The Esplanade and the canal
Start at the long seawater canal that runs the length of the park, mirroring the buildings. Walk up beside it from the southern end; Renzo Piano laid the whole site on this axis, and it's the line the entire walk follows.

2. The National Library of Greece
The reading rooms moved here from the old Vallianeio downtown — glass-walled, daylit, open to anyone with the front desk for a day pass. Step inside even just to see how a national library works when it's built in this century.

3. The Greek National Opera
Under the same roof, the opera house with its two halls. You don't need a ticket to wander the foyers; check the day's programme on the board and read the building, which leans the whole structure towards the canopy above.

4. The roof terrace and the canopy
Take the lift or the long sloping path to the planted roof, capped by Piano's vast ferro-cement canopy on its slender columns. From up here you get the city on one side and the sea on the other — the best free view on this coast.

5. The Great Lawn and the Mediterranean Garden
Come down into the park itself — olive, lavender, cypress, the planting all drawn from the Greek landscape. Walk the lawn slowly; this is parkland the city didn't have on this scale before, and locals treat it as their own.

6. Faliro Bay seafront
Cross the coastal road to the edge of *Faliro* Bay where the park meets the water. Turn west along the front towards the Trocadero tram stop; the bay opens out and the walk lands on the sea it was built to face.

The SNFCC: Renzo Piano and Faliro Bay