Our trip to Greece this summer started with a full day in the capital city. It was planned specifically so that we could visit the Acropolis Museum, which did not feature on our first visit itinerary to Athens. Beyond that, we spent quite a bit of time reacquainting ourselves with Athens, on foot and on Segway.
While on foot, we more or less remained within the boundaries of lively central neighborhoods of Plaka and Monastiraki. Some of the photography presented here repeats what was included in the above-linked old post.
Starting with the main highlight of the Roman Agora, the Tower of the Winds (aka Horologion of Andronikos Cyrrhestes).
The 2,000-plus-year-old tower is among the best-preserved remnants of antiquity anywhere in the world and the only surviving ancient clock tower, decorated with depictions of wind gods on its eight sides.
The rest of the Forum is what you would generally expect from an archaeological site – mostly ruins. The rows of columns, nonetheless, combine with the surroundings in a fairly agreeable way.
The Acropolis of Athens can be seen from practically everywhere in the historic core of the city. That is Erechtheion up on the hill in the background of the perspective taken from the Gate of Athena Archegetis at the western edge of the Roman Forum.
Hadrian’s Library offers a similar line of sight.
The eastern edge of the Acropolis is nothing too special, but nonetheless there it is providing background for the Monument of Lysicrates.
The 4th-century BCE monument commemorates a relatively minor event – a win in a musical competition – but its importance goes much further, as it is considered to be the first use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a building.
We are now in front of the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a 2nd-century CE stone theater overseen by the Parthenon.
The theater was in operation for a little over 100 years before it was destroyed in 267 CE. It lay in ruins for nearly seventeen centuries, until restoration in the 1950s. Since then, it has been an active performance venue and the headline location for the summertime Athens Festival.
One of the most dramatic juxtapositions of different eras is this perspective from Monastiraki Square. The Acropolis, as usual, is in the background. In the front is the Tzistarakis Mosque, now part of the Museum of Greek Folk Art, built in the middle of the 18th century when the Ottoman Empire ruled Greece.
Let’s bring the Acropolis into the foreground. This is an oft-seen perspective from Areopagus Hill.
Areopagus, due to its central location, is a great vantage point for elevated views. You can survey a number of monuments, such as the Ancient Forum and the Temple of Hephaestus…
You can widen the view to include in a single perspective a 10th-century Byzantine church, the modern reconstruction of Stoa of Attalos, a covered marketplace dating from the 2nd century BCE, and the largely nondescript roofline of greater Athens occasionally enlivened by random splashes of color…
Or you can regard Lycabettus Hill, the tallest in Athens.
The dome and towers of the Metropolitan Cathedral make a quiet appearance in the lower right corner. The green dome roughly in the center of the picture belongs to the Church of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite.
You can never get enough of the Acropolis. This perspective is from a viewpoint on Pnyx Hill.
Getting on a Segway for a couple of hours allowed us to cover a bit more ground than we would be able to do if we stayed solely pedestrian. That included a brief stop by the Panathenaic Stadium, the site of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
If you doubted my words that the Acropolis can be seen from practically anywhere, here is a view from the plaza in front of the stadium.
We also stopped by the Zappeion Hall, nowadays a conference center, originally built for those same first modern Olympic Games in the later part of 19th century.
All throughout Athens, the small Orthodox churches offer regular visual highlights. Examples include the Church of the Virgin Mary Pantanassa in Monastiraki Square…
… Panagía Kapnikaréa Church, almost dollhouse-like in this perspective…
… an even smaller Church of the Virgin Mary Gorgoepikoos and Saint Eleutherius next to the Metropolitan Cathedral…
… or the Church of Saint Nicholas Rangavas on the eastern slope of the Acropolis, under the neighborhood of Anafiotika that we explored a bit last time.
Our full day in Athens happened to be a Sunday. Every single church held Sunday services, which seemingly never took a break. I limited myself to a single interior shot, in the larger Church of Saint Irene.
Larger Orthodox churches are always full of color, amazing details, and incredible craftsmanship. Smaller ones can frequently be sparsely decorated, but can also hide breathtaking features therein. I highly recommend taking a look inside any that allows so.
Streets of the historic core of the city, almost by contrast, are hardly ever exuberant, even if not completely without picturesque perspectives.
And once you go outside of Plaka, it gets progressively duller.
What is not at all dull is the Changing of the Guard ceremony. The most obvious one is at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Greek Parliament building, but there is also a detail guarding the Presidential Palace that goes through the same choreography every hour during the day. On most days, the choreography itself is the attraction (a few pictures were included in the same post from the first visit). But on Sundays, the slow elaborate movement is complemented by the full ceremonial attire of the guards. We managed to catch that at the Presidential Palace.
One last impression is from the Port of Piraeus, where we got on a ferry to the Cycladic Islands the following morning. It is an illustration of the previously aired notion that, throughout Greece, colorful churches frequently stand out in the midst of the otherwise bland and featureless urban landscape.
I remain steady in my opinion that there is technically not too much to see in Athens once you’ve covered the key archaeological sites, which can potentially be done in the space of a day.
But the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum are certainly among the unmissables. We have visited the former seven years ago and will spend a bit of time at the latter in the next post.
This article is also featured on GPSmyCity. To download this article for offline reading or create a self-guided walking tour to visit the attractions highlighted in this article, go to Walking Tours and Articles in Athens.