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Acropollis Museum

Those arriving in Athens for the first time generally head immediately for the Acropolis. There are very few visitors who are not already familiar with the image of this distinctive citadel of ancient Athens, perched on its steep flat-topped rock above the sprawling city. It is the spot where Athens, and classical Greek civilisation, began, and the site of a collection of beautiful temples, most dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena. The ruins that remain visible today date from the 4th century BC, most of them erected by Pericles after the Persians destroyed many of the original Acropolis buildings. Visitors toil up the slopes past the souvenir stands and enter the site through the monumental entrance way, the Propylaia, which in ancient times contained an art gallery. To the right of the entrance is the tiny temple of Athena Nike, reconstructed and restored. The Parthenon, the greatest surviving monument of Doric architecture, is the biggest drawcard on the Acropolis, built of Pentelic marble quarried from the distant mountains, which form the backdrop to the magnificent view of Athens from the Acropolis. Alongside the Parthenon is another temple, the Erechtheion, which bears holes on its northern porch where Poseidon’s trident struck it during his contest with Athena to have the city named after him. There is a museum on the Acropolis, too, where some of the carving and friezes recovered from the temples are on show, although many of the archaeological finds from the Acropolis are now housed in the British Museum in London.

The Museum occupies the S.E. of the rock of the Acropolis where the sanctuary of Pandion once stood. The Museum contains mainly pedimental sculpture, reliefs and statues found on the rock of the Acropolis, which formed part of the decoration of its buildings or were dedicated to the goddess Athena. Among the latter is the unique collection in the world of statues of female figures of the archaic era known as the “Korai” with the well known archaic smile, such as the Kore of Lyons, the Kore of Naxos, the Kore of Chios, the Peploforos Kore, the Kore of Antinor, the Kore of Euthidikos, etc. From the remaining votive offering sculptures, those of outstanding interest are the Moschoforos, Rampin’s horseman, a hunting dog, the Boy by Kritias, the head of the blonde youth, etc. There are also sphinxes, four-horse chariots and many votive reliefs such as that of Lenormant, Athena in Meditation, etc.

Ancient Agora

Clustered below the Acropolis (enter from Odos Adrianou, east of Monastiraki Square) is the remains of the Agora, ancient Athens’ commercial and civic centre, where once walked and talked the great philosophers Socrates and Plato. In fact the disgraced and despairing Socrates committed suicide in a prison in the southwest corner of the Agora, by drinking poison. The area is littered with the ruins of numerous ancient buildings, including the Dionysos Theatre (the world’s oldest theatre where great plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were first performed). One building that has been restored is the 200 BC Stoa of Attalos (a stoa is a long, low roofed promenade which served as a combination law court, municipal office and shopping arcade in classical Greece). The reconstructed building now has a museum on its ground floor containing artefacts covering 5,000 years of Athenian history.

At the foot of the Acropolis, near the Theseion metro station and bordering on the streets where the Sunday bazaar takes place, is the archaeological site of the ancient Agora. Since Agora means market in Greek, the ancient and the modern use of the place are not far apart. But, in ancient years, the Agora was not only the commercial centre of the city, it was its political, cultural and religious one as well. The administrative buildings and the temples were built in this area, where the public services and the courts of law were also based. This was where Athenians gathered on a daily basis, not only to buy and sell their goods, but also to learn the news, to criticise the government, to exchange views or just gossip. The history of this area goes back to Neolithic times and the site includes monuments of different periods: from the Classical to the 11th century AD represented by the church of the Agioi Apostoloi.

Telephone: (01) 321 0185; Opening time: Daily 8am to 7.30pm; Admission: €4 (adult), €2 (concessions). A package valid for all Archaeological Sites of Athens including the Acropolis site and museum, Theatre of Dionysos, Kerameikos, Olympieion and Roman Agora is €12 (adults), €6 (concessions)
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National Archaeological Museum

This is the largest and most popular of Athens’ many museums, and is usually very crowded. Its vast collection includes treasures unearthed from Mycenae by Heinrich Schliemann; a staggering array of sculpture including the earliest known Greek figurines dating from around 2,000 BC; frescoes from the volcanic island of Santorini; and so much more that it is recommended visitors make several visits to absorb it all.

(1585) – This building was first used as a military barracks and later as a university before becoming a museum during the Bourbon period. Its priceless collection of sculptures, bronzes, ceramics, paintings, mosaics, jewellery and other works of art represent the most important periods and aspects of the ancient civilizations (particulary from Pompei and Ercolano).

Through the exhibitions the National Museum one can trace the development of the Art of Greece from the prehistoric days to the golden age of Greek thought, and all the way to the Roman times. The extensive Ancient Mycenaean art collection along with the Archaic sculptures represents a period during which ancient Greece accepted and assimilated external aesthetic influence while it grew secure in its own beliefs. On a similar path, the Cycladic Art collection refer to a culture that was exuberant and self-reliant, and the artifacts of the national museum complement the exhibit of the National Museum of Cycladic Art which can be seen also in Athens.

The sculptures of the classical period bear witness to the unique vision of ancient Greece which emphasized reason and centered its attention on the human body. Classical sculpture realizes the importance of humans as living organisms, and treats the world as an entity which can be observed and explained in rational ways for the first time in the history of humanity. Classical Greek Art worships reason almost as if it were a metaphysical entity, and it remains highly idealistic despite the strong current towards naturalism.

The ideals of the Classical world of Greece find their logical conclusion in the highly expressive statues of the Hellenistic period, and reach the end in the realism and pragmatism of Roman art and architecture.

It was this art of Greece that influenced in later times a rebirth of the Greek ideals, and the shift of focus towards the world and mankind during the Italian Renaissance.

Address: Patission 44 Street; Telephone: (01) 821 7724; E-mail: protocol@eam.culture.gr; Opening time: Monday 12.30pm to 5pm; Tuesday to Friday 8am to 5pm; weekends and public holidays 8.30am to 3pm; Admission: €6 (adults); €3 (concessions). From November to March, Sundays are free
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Benaki Museum

Eight thousand years of Greek history come alive. Enjoy prehistoric works of art, rare manuscripts, Byzantine icons, historic weapons and paintings. The greatest attraction is the reconstructions of 18th and 19th century living. The museum also features a Childhood and Toy Department (with 15,000 historic games and children’s items from around the world), a Chinese Art Department (with ceramics as old as 4,000 years) and a Coptic Art Department where displays include rare textiles from Egypt. A museum shop and a roof garden with a restaurant are available to visitors

The Benaki Museum is undoubtedly one of the most popular museums in Athens and, certainly, one of the most visitor-friendly. The collection covers the evolution of Hellenism from the prehistoric period to the beginning of the 20th century. It starts out with tools and figurines from neolithic times and everyday objects from the Copper Age. It goes on to the Classical period, with amphorae, statues, figurines, and jewelry.

From the early Christian age, the museum’s collection of head paintings, the fayum, are some of its most valuable possessions. It goes on to the Byzantine period with religious paintings and iconography. One of the museum’s strengths is its collection of popular Greek arts and crafts, especially local dresses and embroidery. There are two complete and typical Macedonian mansion rooms on exhibit, from Kozani and Siatista.

The top floor covers the period between the end of the Revolution of 1821 and the 1930s, including an exhibition of the dresses and uniforms worn by the former royal family of Greece. The museum has one of the best museum shops in Greece, while the top floor and veranda hosts one of the most elegant cafe restaurants in Athens, with views of the National Garden, across the street.

The museum is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 9 am to 5 pm, Thursday 9 am to 12 am, Sunday 9 am to 3 pm. It is closed on Tuesdays.

Admittance is €6. Senior citizens €3. Thursdays and students are free.
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National Gardens

If the intense hustle and bustle of Athens gets too much, then a visit to the National Garden is a must. A peaceful, green refuge in the midst of central Athens, this public park was once the palace garden of the royal family. It contains garden, a zoo and small lakes and ponds complete with ducks, swans and a few peacocks. There are also several cafés hidden away!

The National Gardens, open from dawn to dusk, is an oasis in the city, with rare flowers, plants and rich greenery from all over the world. It is behind the Parliament and opposite the residence of the President of Greece. On the other side of the park, is the Zappeion Megaron. Designed to be the gardens of the Royal Palace of King Otto and Queen Amalia, it was planted between 1838 and 1860.

You can enter the gardens from one of four gates: the central one, on Vasilissis Sophias Avenue, another on Herodou Atticou Street and the third on Amalias Avenue. The fourth gate connects the National Garden with the Zappeion park area. In the National Garden you will find: a duck pond, a small zoo, a Botanical Museum, a small cafe, and a Children’s Library and playground. The National Gardens is a big park in the middle of Athens where you can go if the city drives you crazy. There is a park for kids with swings and stuff like that.

The National Gardens were formerly for the exclusive use of the Palace but now they are open to everyone. Antiquities have been found there which have been fenced in and are available for viewing. There are flowerbeds, little paths, lofty trees, ponds, playgrounds, little bridges, stone and metal kiosks, statues, and many benches to rest on. On the eastern side of the National Gardens, along the street Herodou Attikou is the New Palace, now the Presidential Mansion and residence of the President of the Republic of Greece.

Kerameikos Cemetary

One of the most beautiful and least visited of the archaeological sites in downtown Athens is Kerameikos, the ancient cemetery of Athens. The area was on the northwest fringe of the ancient city and and is now the outer edge of the areas visited by most travelers. But if you follow Ermou street down from the Monastiraki train station you will easily find it on your right.

When you vist Greece in the summer, the ground around the ancient stones has been baked by the sun and anything that was alive is as brown as the dirt. But in the winter when it rains everything is covered in grass and moss and it gives you a strange feeling like you are in Ireland, in some remains of an ancient Greek or Roman colony.

Within the site are the ancient walls of Athens and the Sacred Gate which was only used by pilgrims from Eleusus using the sacred road to and from that site during the anual procession. Nearby is the Dipylon gate which was the main entrance to the city, where the Panathenaic procession began and where the cities prostitutes congregated so they could make themselves available to weary travelers.

Between the two gates is the Pompeion, where the preparations were made for the Panathenaic procession which was in honor of Athena. The building was completely destroyed in 88BC and a 3 aisled building called the Building of the Warehouses was erected in it’s place in the 2nd century AD. The church of Agia Triada is in the background. The Eridanos river which once passed through the Sacred gate still flows beneath the site. It was covered by the Romans.

There is a small museum with some really nice pottery, sculptures and right next to it is a collection of pillars which I assume were grave markers. It was just so beautiful that the ancient past seemed irrelevant. If you can get there in the winter or before the tourist hordes arrive for the summer then go. But even if you come in the summer be sure to take the walk to Kerameikos and hang out for awhile.

Theatre of Dionysos

Anyone who has been to Athens will know the theatre of Dionysos at the foot of the Acropolis ; any Hellenist knows that the dramatics competitions took place during the festivals of Dionysos, the Dionysies. The link between the god and theatrical performances is thus clearly established.
Although it is easy to bring together the satirical drama, the dithyramb and the comedy of the cult – the dionysian cortège, the connection between this very cult and the origin of Greek tragedy gives the opportunity for the emergence of diverging and even contradictory interpretations.

The Theater of Dionysos in Athens could seat approximately 15 thousand in simple stone benches on the slope of the Acropolis. The seats partially surround the orchêstra, which is a dancing area of packed earth, about 20m in diameter. This is where the chorus spends most of its time. In its center is the altar of Dionysos (about 1m high). On either side of orchêstra is an entry path (eisodos), used both by the audience to get to its seats and by the chorus for its entries and exits. Some scholars think that there was a small stage (8X3m., 1m high) between the orchêstra and skênê (not shown on diagram); it would have steps down to the orchêstra.

The enormous dimensions of the Theatre of Dionysos, on the southeastern slope of the Acropolis, give testament to the importance of theatre in the life of the Athenian city-state. The first theatre on this site was a timber affair erected in the 6th century BC. Here goatskin-clad performers sang and danced during the Festival of Great Dionysia. During the golden age of the 5th century, dramas by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes were commissioned for the festival. The theatre was reconstructed in stone and marble by Lycurgus between 342 and 326 BC. The auditorium could seat 17,000; of an original 64 tiers of seats, about 20 tiers still survive. The 2nd-century reliefs at the rear of the stage depict the exploits of Dionysos. The two hefty, hunched-up selini were worshippers of the mythical Selinos of the oversized phallus, who charged up mountains in lecherous pursuit of nymphs. He mentored Dionysos – with whatever energy he had leftover.

Tower of the Winds

In an old Roman marketplace located in Athens, Greece not far from the famed Parthenon stands a structure known as the “Tower of the Winds.”

Constructed around 50 BCE, by the Greek architect and astronomer Andronikos of Kyrrhos, it combined sundials, a complicated internal water clock, and a weathervane many historians cite as the first ever built. The octagonal, white marble Tower stands over 12 metres (46 feet) high with a diameter of about 8 metres (26 feet), resting on a base of three steps.

The Tower was originally topped by a revolving bronze weather vane which we know from historical records to have been of the sea god Triton, who had the head and torso of a man and the tail of a fish. A pointed wand in his hand indicated the direction from which the wind was blowing. Considering the Greeks’ sense of architectural proportion, the Triton vane likely measured from 1.2-2.5 metres (4-8 feet) long to look proper atop a 12 metre (forty-five-foot) high structure.

To the ancients, the winds had divine powers. The Tower, made of local marble, is decorated on each side with a sculpted figure of the wind deity ruling the compass point to which it faces. Each winged figure personified the character of its wind direction. For example, on the north side, Boreas, dressed in a heavy cloak, blows through a twisted conch shell, signifying the cold character of the North Wind. The following table describes all eight of the wind dieties.

In the early Christian period, the Tower of the Winds was converted into a church. Later on, it became covered with the earth and debris that had accumulated over the centuries, but was excavated by the Greek Archaeological Society around 1837-1845. Modern restorations took place during WO I and recently in 1976.

“Some have chosen to reckon only four winds, the East blowing from the equinoctial sun-side, the South from the noonday sun, the West from the equinoctial sun-setting, and the North from the polar stars. But those who are more exact, have reckoned eight winds, particularly Andronicus Cyrrhestes, who on this system erected an octagon marble tower at Athens, and on every side of the octagon, he wrought a figure in relievo, representing the wind which blows against that side; the top of this tower he finished with a conical marble, on which he placed a brazen triton, holding a wand in his right hand; this triton is so contrived that he turns round with the wind, and always stops when he directly faces it: pointing with his wand, over the figure of the wind at that time blowing.” — Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius

Greece’s capital & the birthplace of western civilisation has been a city for 3,500 years. It flourished in the Classical period, producing thinkers such as Socrates, Plato & Aristotle. Modern Athens was born in 1834 and has been the capital of Greece ever since. It houses more than a third of the entire Greek population and attracts over three million visitors per year. Apart from the legendary buildings of the Acropolis, Athens is home to one of the best archeological museums in the world, countless Roman and Byzantine monuments and many areas of natural beauty. Furthermore for many visitors it is the gateway to one of Greece’s 1400 islands.

Athens takes its name from Athena, the ancient Greek Goddess of wisdom, and offers countless opportunities to contemplate the achievements of great men who lived and worked here, such as Euripides, Plato and Aristotle. The Acropolis is the heart of the city, rising proudly above the outlying modern quarters. Explore the magnificent Parthenon, the most perfect of all Greek temples, and discover the array of temples that adorn the surrounding area. The Romans first conquered Athens and later flocked to its cultural attractions. They adorned the city with numerous monuments and completed the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the largest temple in Greece. It took over 700 years to build and its awesome 17 metre high columns still stand on the Agora, the ancient marketplace. Don’t miss the Arch of Hadrian and the restored Roman stadium which can seat 70,000.

you’ve probably come here to see the “glory that was Greece,” perhaps best symbolized by the Parthenon and the superb statues and vases in the National Archaeological Museum, allow some time to make haste slowly in Athens. Your best moments may come sitting at a small cafe, sipping a tiny cup of the sweet sludge that the Greeks call coffee, or getting hopelessly lost in the Plaka – only to find yourself in the shady courtyard of an old church, or suddenly face to face with an ancient monument you never knew existed. With only a little advance planning, you can find a good hotel here, eat well in convivial restaurants, enjoy local customs such as the refreshing afternoon siesta and the leisurely evening volta (promenade or stroll) – and leave Athens planning to return, as the Greeks say, tou chronou (next year).

Athens enjoys a rich cultural life today. See productions of ancient plays in their original settings. Explore the many shops and classy restaurants of Kolonaki or wander the narrow streets of Plaka and taste a Greek coffee.