Athens Travel Guide

Athens wears its role as the birthplace of Western civilisation lightly, layering a loud, creative modern city over the ruins of the ancient one. Everything orients around the Acropolis, the great rock crowned by the Parthenon, visible from rooftops across town; below it spread the marble remains of the Ancient Agora where democracy was argued into being, and the superb National Archaeological Museum holds the treasures dug from all of it.

But today's Athens is just as much about the present — the village-like lanes of Plaka and the whitewashed island enclave of Anafiotika beneath the rock, the street art and bars of Psyrri and Exarcheia, the rooftop tavernas where you eat with the floodlit Parthenon in view. Sunny almost year-round and the gateway to the islands by ferry from nearby Piraeus, it rewards travellers who give it a couple of days rather than treating it as a stopover.