Athens
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1. Acropolis
AcropolisYou don't have to look far in Athens to encounter perfection. Towering above all—both physically and spiritually—stands the Acropolis, a millennia-old survivor. The Greek term Akropolis means High City, and today's traveler who climbs this table-like hill is paying tribute to the prime source of Western civilization. As of September 2020, this amazing monument has been lit up in a new way by the Onassis Cultural Center in collaboration with the Greek state; using 690 LED lights, every monument on the Acropolis can now be relished in a new light. Most of the notable structures on this flat-top limestone outcrop, 512 feet high, were built from 461 to 429 BC, when the intellectual and artistic life of Athens flowered under the influence of the Athenian statesman Pericles. Since then, the buildings of the Acropolis have undergone transformations into, at various times, a Florentine palace, an Islamic mosque, and a Turkish harem. They have also weathered the hazards of wars, right up to 1944, when British paratroopers positioned their bazookas between the Parthenon's columns. Today, the Erechtheion temple has been completely restored, and conservation work on the Parthenon is ongoing, focusing now on the western side. With most of the major restoration work now completed, a visit to the Acropolis evokes the spirit of the ancient heroes and gods who were once worshipped here. The sight of the Parthenon—the Panathenaic temple at the crest of this ieros vrachos (sacred rock)—has the power to stir the heart as few other ancient relics do. The walk through the Acropolis takes about four hours, depending on the crowds, including an hour spent in the New Acropolis Museum. In general, the earlier you start out the better—in summer the heat is blistering by noon and the light's reflection off the rock and marble ruins is almost blinding. Remember to bring water, sunscreen, nonslip footwear, and a hat to protect yourself from the sun. An alternative, in summer, is to visit after 5 pm, when the light is best for taking photographs. The two hours before sunset, when the fabled violet light occasionally spreads from the crest of Mt. Hymettus and embraces the Acropolis, is an ideal time to visit in any season. After dark the hill is spectacularly floodlighted, creating a scene visible from many parts of the capital. You enter the Acropolis complex through the Beulé Gate, a late-Roman structure named for the French archaeologist who discovered the gate in 1852. Before Roman times, the entrance to the Acropolis was a steep ramp below the Temple of Athena Nike that was used every fourth year for the Panathenaic procession, a spectacle that honored Athena's remarkable birth (she sprang from the head of her father, Zeus). When you enter the gate, ask for the free, information-packed bilingual (in English and Greek) pamphlet guide. At the loftiest point of the Acropolis stands the Parthenon, the architectural masterpiece conceived by Pericles and executed between 447 and 438 BC. It not only raised the bar in terms of sheer size, but also in the perfection of its proportions. Dedicated to the goddess Athena (the name comes from the Athena Parthenos, the virgin Athena), the Parthenon served primarily as the treasury of the Delian League, an ancient alliance of cities formed to defeat the Persian incursion. In fact, the Parthenon was built as much to honor the city's power as to venerate the goddess. After the Persian army sacked Athens in 480–479 BC, the city-state banded with Sparta, and together they routed the Persians by 449 BC. To proclaim its hegemony over all Greece, Athens then set about constructing its Acropolis, ending a 30-year building moratorium. Once you pass through the Beulé Gate you will find the Temple of Athena Nike. Designed by Kallikrates, the mini-temple was built in 427–424 BC to celebrate peace with Persia. The bas-reliefs on the surrounding parapet depict the Victories leading heifers to be sacrificed. Past the temple, the imposing Propylaea structure was designed to instill the proper reverence in worshippers as they crossed from the temporal world into the spiritual world of the sanctuary, for this was the main function of the Acropolis. The Propylaea was intended to have been the same size as the Parthenon, and thus the grandest secular building in Greece, but construction was suspended during the Peloponnesian War, and it was never finished. The structure shows the first use of the Attic style, which combines both Doric and Ionic columns. The building's slender Ionic columns had elegant capitals, some of which have been restored along with a section of the famed paneled ceiling, originally decorated with gold, eight-pointed stars on a blue background. Adjacent to the Pinakotheke, or art gallery (which has paintings of scenes from Homer's epics and mythological tableaux), the south wing is a decorative portico (row of columns). The view from the inner porch of the Propylaea is stunning: the Parthenon is suddenly revealed in its full glory, framed by the columns. If the Parthenon is the masterpiece of Doric architecture, the Erechtheion is undoubtedly the prime exemplar of the more graceful Ionic order. A considerably smaller structure than the Parthenon, it outmatches, for sheer elegance and refinement of design, all other buildings of the Greco-Roman world. For the populace, the Erechtheion, completed in 406 BC, remained Athena's holiest shrine, for legend has it that Poseidon plunged his trident into the rock on this spot, dramatically producing a spring of water, while Athena created a simple olive tree, whose produce remains a main staple of Greek society. A panel of judges declared the goddess the winner, and the city was named Athena. The most delightful feature is the south portico, known as the Caryatid Porch. It is supported on the heads of six maidens (caryatids) wearing delicately draped Ionian garments. What you see at the site today are copies; the originals are in the New Acropolis Museum. Most people take the metro to the Acropolis station, where the Acropolis Museum is just across the main exit. They then follow the Dionyssiou Aeropagitou, the pedestrianized street that traces the foothill of the Acropolis to its entrance at the Beulé Gate. Another entrance is along the rock's northern face via the pretty Peripatos, a paved path from the Plaka district. The summit of the Acropolis can also now be reached by people with disabilities via an elevator. Don't throw away your Acropolis ticket after your tour. It will get you into all the other sites in the Unification of Archaeological Sites for five days—at no extra cost. Guides to the Acropolis are quite informative and will also help kids understand the site better.
Athens, Attica, 11742, Greece210-321–4172-ticket informationSight Details
€20 Acropolis and Theater of Dionysus; €30 joint ticket for all Unification of Archaeological Sites (valid for 5 days) -
2. Acropolis Museum
AcropolisDesigned by the celebrated Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi in collaboration with Greek architect Michalis Fotiadis, the Acropolis Museum made world headlines when it opened in June 2009. If some buildings define an entire city in a particular era, Athens's monumental museum boldly sets the tone of Greece's modern aspirations. Occupying a large plot of the city's most prized real estate, the Acropolis Museum nods to the fabled ancient hill above it but speaks—thanks to a building that looks spectacular from its every angle—in a contemporary architectural language. The museum drew 90,000 visitors in its first month and proved it is spacious enough to accommodate such crowds (a whopping 14½ million visitors had entered the doors of the ingenious, airy structure by the end of its first decade). Unlike its crammed, dusty predecessor, there is lots of elbow room, from the museum's olive tree–dotted grounds to its prized, top-floor Parthenon Gallery. Regal glass walkways, very high ceilings, and panoramic views are all part of the experience. In the five-level museum, every shade of marble is on display and bathed in abundant, UV-safe natural light. Visitors pass into the museum through a broad entrance and move ever upward. The ground-floor exhibit, "The Acropolis Slopes," features objects found in the sanctuaries and settlements around the Acropolis—a highlight is the collection of theatrical masks and vases from the sanctuary of the matrimonial deity Nymphe. The next floor is devoted to the Archaic period (650 BC–480 BC), with rows of precious statues mounted for 360-degree viewing. The floor includes sculptural figures from the Hekatompedon—the temple that may have predated the classical Parthenon—such as the noted group of stone lions gorging on a bull from 570 BC. The legendary five Caryatids (or Korai)—the female figures supporting the Acropolis's Erectheion building—symbolically leave a space for their sister, who resides in London's British Museum. The second floor is devoted to the terrace and a restaurant/coffee shop with a wonderful view of the Acropolis, which starts by serving a traditional Greek breakfast every day except Monday, before moving on to more delicious Greek dishes (every Friday the restaurant remains open until midnight). Drifting into the top-floor atrium, the visitor can watch a video on the Parthenon before entering the star gallery devoted to the temple's Pentelic marble decorations, many of which depict a grand procession in the goddess Athena's honor. Frieze pieces (originals and copies), metopes, and pediments are all laid out in their original orientation. This is made remarkably apparent because the gallery consists of a magnificent, rectangle-shaped room tilted to align with the Parthenon itself. Floor-to-ceiling windows provide magnificent vistas of the temple just a few hundred feet away. Museum politics are unavoidable here. This gallery was designed—as Greek officials have made obvious—to hold the Parthenon Marbles in their entirety. This includes the sculptures Lord Elgin brought to London two centuries ago. Currently, 50 meters of the frieze are in Athens, 80 meters in London's British Museum, and another 30 meters scattered in museums around the world. The spectacular and sumptuous new museum challenges the British claim that there is no suitable home for the Parthenon treasures in Greece. Pointedly, the museum avoids replicas, as the top-floor gallery makes a point of highlighting the abundant missing original pieces with empty space and outlines. Elsewhere on view are other fabled works of art, including the Rampin Horseman and the compelling Hound, both by the sculptor Phaidimos; the noted pediment sculpted into a calf being devoured by a lioness—a 6th-century BC treasure that brings to mind Picasso's Guernica; striking pedimental figures from the Old Temple of Athena (525 BC) depicting the battle between Athena and the Giants; and the great Nike Unfastening Her Sandal, taken from the parapet of the Acropolis's famous Temple of Athena Nike.
View Tours and ActivitiesDionyssiou Areopagitou 15, Athens, Attica, 11742, Greece210-900–0900Sight Details
Rate Includes: €10, reduced to €5, Closed Mon. Nov.–Mar. -
3. Filopappou
AcropolisThis summit includes Lofos Mousson (Hill of the Muses), whose peak offers the city's best view of the Parthenon. Also there is the Monument of Filopappus, depicting a Syrian prince who was such a generous benefactor that the people accepted him as a distinguished Athenian. The marble monument is a tomb decorated by a frieze showing Filopappus driving his chariot. In 294 BC a fort strategic to Athens's defense was built here, overlooking the road to the sea. On the hill of the Pnyx (meaning "crowded"), the all-male general assembly (Ecclesia) met during the time of Pericles. Originally, citizens of the Ecclesia faced the Acropolis while listening to speeches, but they tended to lose their concentration as they gazed upon the monuments, so the positions of the speaker and the audience were reversed. The speaker's platform is still visible on the semicircular terrace. Farther north is the Hill of the Nymphs, with a 19th-century observatory designed by Theophilos Hansen. He was so satisfied with his work, he had servare intaminatum ("to remain intact") inscribed over the entrance.
Athens, Attica, 11742, Greece -
4. Odeon of Herodes Atticus
AcropolisHauntingly beautiful, this ancient theater was built in AD 160 by the affluent Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife, Regilla. Known as the Irodion and visited throughout the summer by culture vultures, it is nestled Greek-style into the hillside, but with typically Roman arches in its three-story stage building and barrel-vaulted entrances. The circular orchestra has now become a semicircle, and the long-vanished cedar roof probably covered only the stage and dressing rooms, not the 34 rows of seats. The theater, which holds 5,000, was restored and reopened in 1955 for the Athens Epidaurus Festival. To enter you must hold a ticket to one of the summer performances, which range from the Royal Ballet to ancient tragedies usually performed in Modern Greek. Contact the festival's box office for ticket information. Children under six are not allowed except at some special performances.
View Tours and ActivitiesDionyssiou Areopagitou, Athens, Attica, 11742, Greece210-928–2900-box office -
5. Theater of Dionysus
AcropolisIt was on this spot in the 6th century BC that the Dionysia festivals took place; a century later, dramas such as Sophocles's Oedipus Rex and Euripides's Medea were performed for the entire population of the city. Visible are foundations of a stage dating from about 330 BC, when it was built for 15,000 spectators as well as the assemblies formerly held on Pnyx. In the middle of the orchestra stood the altar to Dionysus; a fantastic throne in the center was reserved for the priest of Dionysus. On the hillside above the theater stand two columns, vestiges of the little temple erected in the 4th century BC by Thrasyllus the Choragus.
Dionyssiou Areopagitou, Athens, Attica, 11742, Greece210-322–4625Sight Details
€20 Acropolis and Theater of Dionysus; €30 joint ticket for all Unification of Archaeological Sites Rate Includes: May–Oct., daily 8–8 (last entry 7:30); Nov.–Apr., daily 8–5 (last entry 4:30) -
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