The collection
Attica · A city between the Acropolis and the sea
Go to Syntagma Square to see the Evzones, the Presidential Guard, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They wear the fustanella, a white pleated kilt, with long white woollen hose and tsarouchia, shoes turned up at the toe and topped with a large pompom. Then climb into Anafiotika, a corner of Plaka on the northeast side of the Acropolis, built in the 19th century by workers from the island of Anafi. Its 45 houses are small, white and cubic, with bougainvillea on the walls, and the lanes end in steps or on terraces where you can sit and look out over the city at night.
Athens lies in a basin ringed by 4 mountains and open to the Saronic Gulf on the southwest. The Acropolis rises out of it, a rock 150 metres above sea level with a flat top of about 3 hectares. Its temples are built of marble cut on Mount Pentelicus, one of those mountains, and work on the Parthenon began in 447 BC, under Pericles. Athens has a recorded history of more than 3,400 years. The sea is close: the city's coastline runs 25 kilometres from Piraeus to Varkiza, and a tram takes you from Syntagma Square down to the water.
A temple to Athena, 70 metres long and 14 high, with 8 columns across each end and 17 down each side. It was finished in 438 BC, and the carving went on until 432. You reach it through the Propylaea, the monumental gateway at the western end of the rock, and beside it the Erechtheion holds up one porch on carved female figures, the Caryatids. The figures on the building now are copies, and 5 of the originals are in the Acropolis Museum.
The city's market, meeting ground and home of its council, excavated since 1931. The Stoa of Attalos, a 2nd-century-BC arcade of shops, was rebuilt in the 1950s and holds the site's museum. The Temple of Hephaestus stands inside the site, and the oak and laurel around the Altar of Zeus were planted in 1954 to bring back trees that grew here in antiquity.
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Vouliagmeni
A pine-clad peninsula on the Athens Riviera, with 3 places to stay: Arion, Nafsika and the Bungalows.
Begun in the 6th century BC under Athens's own tyrants and finished only under the Roman emperor Hadrian, in the 2nd century AD. It was the largest temple in Greece, with 104 Corinthian columns, each 17 metres high. Of those, 15 still stand, and a 16th lies on the ground where a storm brought it down in 1852. Hadrian's Arch stands at the northwest corner of the enclosure.
A racecourse lay in this ravine from the 6th century BC. Lykourgos built a stadium on it around 330 BC, and Herodes Atticus rebuilt it in marble by 144 AD, when it held 50,000. It is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble, it held the opening and closing ceremonies of the first modern Olympics in 1896, and the Athens Classic Marathon still finishes here.
Opened in 2009, 280 metres from the Parthenon, over the excavated streets of an ancient neighbourhood. You see them through the glass floors, and since 2019 you can walk through them. On the top floor the Parthenon's sculptures face outward as they did on the temple, lit by daylight through glass on all 4 walls, and the whole floor is turned to face the same way as the Parthenon.
A limestone hill 277 metres high, the highest point in central Athens, with pines around its base. A funicular runs up from Kolonaki to just below the summit, entirely in a tunnel. The Chapel of St George, built in the 19th century, stands on the summit with the Acropolis in view across the city. The open-air theatre near the top reopened in 2023 after 15 years closed.
A short list of extraordinary places to stay.
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