Things To Do in Athens Greece

Ancient Heritage and the Acropolis

The Parthenon, built between 447 and 432 BC on the highest point of Athens, is the most influential building in the history of Western architecture: its proportional system and sculptural program have been cited, imitated, and debated for two and a half millennia across every architectural tradition. The Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, is one of the most significant museum buildings of the twenty-first century and holds the surviving sculptural program of the Parthenon in the orientation for which it was designed. The National Archaeological Museum holds the largest collection of ancient Greek artefacts in the world, including the Antikythera Mechanism, the oldest known analogue computing device. The Roman Agora, the Ancient Agora with the Temple of Hephaestus, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus add further strata to an archaeological landscape of unparalleled density.

Food, Mezze and the Athenian Table

Athenian food culture is built on hospitality expressed through abundance, and the mezze tradition of shared small dishes reflects a social relationship with food that is fundamentally different from Northern European dining. Grilled octopus, spanakopita, saganaki, tzatziki, taramosalata, and stuffed vine leaves form the foundations, but the contemporary restaurant scene has developed considerably into a Michelin-recognised modern Greek cooking that still draws on the same ingredients and flavour principles. The Varvakios central market near Omonia is one of the most atmospherically intense food markets in Europe. The Monastiraki, Psyrri, and Exarcheia districts each carry a distinct food culture ranging from traditional tavernas to natural wine bars.

Maritime Industry and Business

Athens hosts several international events that draw professional and policy audiences alongside its cultural visitors. The Posidonia shipping and maritime services exhibition, held every two years at the Metropolitan Expo in Piraeus, is the most important event of its kind in the world and reflects Greece's position at the center of global maritime commerce. The Delphi Economic Forum each spring, held in the mountain sanctuary town whose ancient oracle the forum name invokes, and the Athens Democracy Forum each autumn bring political and economic figures to Greece for discussions whose settings are among the most historically resonant available to any conference program. The port of Piraeus, 10 kilometres south of the city center and connected by Metro, is the largest passenger port in Europe and the point of departure for ferries to every inhabited Greek island — a practical function that also makes it one of the busiest and most characterful port environments in the Mediterranean.

Culture, Sport and City Life

Athens hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, restoring a tradition interrupted for over fifteen centuries, and the Panathenaic Stadium, rebuilt entirely in marble and used for those games, remains the only stadium in the world constructed from that material alone. The city hosted the Olympics again in 2004, and the Athens Olympic Sports Complex in Maroussi continues as an active venue for athletics and sport. The Athens Classic Marathon in November follows the original route from the town of Marathon to the city stadium. Two of Athens's major football clubs sustain one of European football's most passionately contested local rivalries, with matches treated as civic events of the highest significance.

Neighbourhoods, Street Life and the Contemporary City

Athens operates at street level with an intensity and sociability that its ancient monuments can distract visitors from noticing. The Exarcheia neighbourhood, historically the most politically radical district in the city, has a concentration of independent bookshops, record shops, political cafés, and bars that gives it a specific intellectual character maintained across decades of urban change. Koukaki and Pangrati, south and east of the Acropolis respectively, have developed restaurant and café cultures driven by the local resident populations rather than by tourism, producing neighbourhood eating that is more honest and frequently better than the tourist-facing terraces around the major sites. The Monastiraki flea market, at its most concentrated on Sunday mornings when the surrounding streets fill with stalls, furniture, and vintage objects, is the most characterful market setting in the city. The Athenian summer outdoor cinema tradition, whose rooftop and garden cinemas project films against the Athenian sky from May through September with the Acropolis visible in some venues from the audience seating, is a specifically Athenian pleasure of a kind that no other city can replicate. The First Cemetery of Athens, south of the Panathenaic Stadium, is a place of extraordinary sculptural richness and a key destination for anyone seriously interested in Greek art beyond the ancient period. The Kolonaki neighbourhood on the slopes below Lycabettus Hill is the city's most affluent retail and café district, with a concentration of galleries, independent boutiques, and restaurants that reflects an Athenian bourgeois culture maintained through considerable economic turbulence. The Lycabettus Theatre, a stone outdoor amphitheatre cut into the rock at 300 metres above sea level, programs summer concerts with views across the city to the Saronic Gulf that no other venue in Athens can match. The Athens Riviera south of the city, extending from Faliro through Vouliagmeni to Sounion, offers beaches, seafood restaurants, and the ruined Temple of Poseidon on a cape at the tip of the Attica peninsula that can be reached in under an hour and whose setting at sunset over the Aegean is one of the great views of the eastern Mediterranean. The Archaeological Museum of Piraeus holds a collection of bronze sculptures recovered from the sea that are among the finest surviving examples of ancient Greek bronzework.