A travel guide to Athens

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Anyone arriving in Athens will soon catch a glimpse of the Acropolis. One of the most iconic sights in Greece, this sheer-sided hill rising high above the Athenian plain, topped by some of the most famous temples in the world, dominates the skyline both night and day. Make this your first port of call: most of Athens is visible from it, and it is a great place to orientate yourself with regard to the city – irrespective of the spectacular architecture on display!

The Athenian Acropolis
The only ticket on sale here is a joint one (€12) that includes entry to all the other major monuments of Ancient Athens (the Agora, the Roman forum, the Temple of Zeus, the Kerameikos, and the theatre of Dionysus). Although these joint tickets are also on sale at these other places, it can sometimes be difficult to explain that you want the all-inclusive ticket, rather than a ticket for that site only, making it a good idea to visit the Acropolis first. You will also benefit from one of the best initiatives taken in the run up to the Olympic celebrations in 2004 - the creation of a pedestrian route linking together all of the sites that are included in the Acropolis joint entry ticket, making the stroll between them much more pleasant than it used to be.  If it is possible, time your visit here carefully: the Acropolis is the obvious destination for visitors on organised day-excursions to Athens, and can be horrendously busy for a few hours a day, while being practically deserted for the rest of the time. Early morning and late afternoon are usually the best times to go, when you will hopefully be able to appreciate the monuments and the stunning views in peace and quiet. The New Acropolis museum, opened in 2009, is located just below (easily visible from the Acropolis: €5). It contains a wealth of finds from the Acropolis, including wonderful Archaic sculpture, some of which still has traces of the original paint!

The Plaka District
The area to the north of the Acropolis, the Plaka, is the oldest district in Athens.  It contains many fine cafes and restaurants – two of the best are Psarras and Xinos (corner of Erechtheous & Erotokritou and No.4 Geronta respectively).  Beware, though: it can be easy to get lost in the winding streets of the Plaka, so get hold of a map of central Athens if you are going to do any serious walking.  Free copies are easily obtained from most hotels and information points, or they can be purchased relatively cheaply in advance.

The Plaka is in many ways the heart of Athens. It contains many of the major archaeological sites, and is roughly central to the rest. It’s here that you’ll find the greatest concentration of traditional Greek architecture. It can be quite a hike up and down the slopes, but its well worth the trip to the higher reaches to get away from the crowds that throng the lower parts, and see a little of what Athens used to be like in the 19th century.

From the Kerameikos to the Temple of Olympian Zeus
All of the other sites included in the Acropolis entry ticket are well worth visiting.  For a nice morning or afternoon outing, combine the outliers - the Kerameikos and Temple of Zeus - with other sites. For an interesting route to the Kerameikos, try beginning at Plateia Monistaraki and the Tzistarakis mosque (stopping at its small pottery museum), and then head through the flea market until you reach Odhos Ermou. The central drag of the market is not particularly inspiring, but many of the shops in the side-streets are worth exploring. A little way down Ermou, on the right just before the Kerameikos, is a street called Melidhoni. Here, there’s another pottery museum and the chance to see pottery being made in time-honoured fashion. Melidhoni is crossed at the end by another road called Asomaton, with its museum of Islamic art.  The old Jewish synagogue of Athens is also in this area, although it can often only be viewed from outside.

The Temple of Zeus is best reached by a looping route from the centre of Plaka around the Acropolis to the Lysikrates monument near the junction of Odhos Tripodhon and Epimenidhou. This was originally a monument set up by a playwright who had won a dramatic competition in 4th century BC Athens, but it became part of a Capuchin convent and Byron allegedly wrote part of Childe Harold in its hollowed out core. From here, you can cross Leoforos Vassilis Amalias and enter the Temple of Zeus after taking in Hadrian’s arch, set up by a previous admirer of Athens. You can finish the walk here, but if you’ve been bitten by the bug, it’s well worth continuing to the end of Vasilissis Olgas.  Cross the road – with care, it’s busy! – to the Panathenaic stadium or Kallimarmaro, built in the late 19th century on the plan of an ancient stadium to host the newly resumed Olympic games. It was used again for the 2004 Olympics, and is simply one of the most amazing spectacles in the city – and one which almost no-one ever visits. From here, you can return to the centre via the National gardens, or enter into the outskirts of another district, Pangrati, to eat in one of the local restaurants – Theophilos on Plataia Proskopon being one of the very best.

Refreshments
By now, you might be pretty weary.  Fortunately there are cafes and bars dotted all over town, and the ubiquitous periptero, which is a kind of corner shop stocking cold drinks, ice creams, newspapers, cigarettes, etc. actually on the street corner itself. Most are small wooden huts, in which the owner sits and takes money, serving goods through the windows, but some have become quite lavish affairs, taking up a lot of the street. They are excellent information points, and a nice demonstration of how safe this city truly is: so much of the produce is on the outside, far from the reach or sight of the proprietor, that shoplifters, if they existed in any number, could rob them blind.

Museums
Two of the best museums in the city, the Benaki and the Goulandris, combine world-class exhibitions with excellent coffee-shops, but the main museum of the city, the National Archaeological Museum, does not. Don’t let that put you off: it houses the greatest treasure trove of Ancient Greek artefacts in the world, including the finds from the princely graves of Mycenae and the Cycladic frescoes from Thera, the Pompeii of the Aegean. The museum is a little out of the way, and is probably the only monument in the city worth getting public transport to. Generally, the metro system is excellent, clean and efficient, and will bring you close to practically any place that you wish to visit for very little cost. Several of the stations also have small archaeological exhibits of the finds that were made when the system was dug, and even if not travelling on the metro itself, these (particularly at Syntagma, Acropolis, Panepistimiou) are well worth seeing. The taxi system is very cheap and effective (the notorious traffic jams have improved of late), but it’s probably only worth taking them in the late evening, when returning to your hotel from a restaurant in one of the further parts of the city (although you must insist on the meter being switched on!)

Kolonaki
If you decide to visit either the Benaki or Goulandris museums, then you have travelled to another interesting district of Athens, Kolonaki, which is quite different to the Plaka. It is relatively new, so contains little that is interesting in the way of architecture, but it is the wealthiest district in the centre of Athens, and is therefore a great place to people-watch. The Greeks say that Athens is simply the biggest village in the land, but it would be more correct to say that it is a collection of villages, each of which forms a district with its own centre, the main square (Plateia). Sit in one of the cafes in Plateia Kolonaki, order a drink, and watch the rich and powerful drift by. If you happen to come here for a pre-dinner drink, one of the best places to eat is Dhimokritos (Dhimokritou 23).

Lykavitos
The Lykavitos hill rises high above Kolonaki, and provides a good way to either work up an appetite, or work off some recently acquired calories. The less-turbocharged may prefer to walk up through the (still steep) streets of Kolonaki to the Funicular which runs up to the top, but those with energy will want to walk all the way, on a tended path that runs through woodland: a rare commodity in the city centre! The summit is topped by a beautiful little Cycladic-style church, and the views from here are simply spectacular.

Syntagma and its environs
Another sight worth seeing occurs at regular intervals throughout the day: the changing of the guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the parliament building in Plateia Syntagma. The soldiers are from an elite regiment, the Evzones, and they wear a traditional costume from the Northern mountain districts and goose-step their way slowly around a path to and from their allotted position. The square itself is nondescript, except during Christmas time when it sports an enormous Christmas tree, but some of the roads that radiate from it are well worth exploring. In particular, Panepistimiou and its side-streets are a great place to go shopping, not least because the flagship Eleftheroudakis bookstore is located here (at n.17): a six storey shop, filled with all the best guidebooks, novels, maps etc. that you could wish for (many in English). If shopping is not for you, then this road also houses the excellent Numismatic Museum (no.12) in Heinrich Schliemann’s old Mansion – it is worth paying a visit just to see the house of this pioneering and controversial archaeologist, never mind the huge collection of coins! Once again, there are some good restaurants in easy reach.  Ideal (no.46 Panepistimiou) is perhaps the best in terms of atmosphere and good, traditional cooking.

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