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Plaka /
Athens (click to enlarge)
Athens' Academy
Athens' Archaeological Museum
Athens Adrian's Gate
Columns of Olympian Zeus, Athens
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Athens
Athens is the capital of Greece, one of the most ancient
cities in the world, with a recorded history dating back to
3200 BC, a center of the arts, knowledge and philosophy,
seat of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum,
the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of
democracy. The city’s heritage from the classical era has
for centuries been evident, represented by ancient monuments
and works of art, the most famed being the Parthenon,
a milestone of ancient Western civilization. Also preserved
in the city are Roman and Byzantine monuments as well as a
small number of Ottoman monuments.
Athens boasts 17 foreign archaeological institutes or
schools which propagate and facilitate archaeological
research in the country. The city is home to such major
international museums as the National Archaeological
Museum, one of the foremost archaeological museums of
the world with the largest collection of ancient Greek
antiquities from the Neolithic until the Roman period, the
Museum of Cycladic Art, with striking exhibits of the
Cycladic civilization from the 3rd millennium BC, the
Epigraphic Museum, the biggest of its kind in the world
with 14,078 inscriptions mainly written in Greek by early
historians up until the early Christian years, the unique
international New Acropolis Museum, the Numismatic
Museum, the Museum of the City of Athens and the
museums of the Ancient Agora, the Byzantine and
Christian Museum, one of the most important
international museums of Byzantine art, and the
Archaeological
Museum of
Keramikos. Academy of Plato,
Areios Pagos,
Kapnikarea, Philopappos Hill, Diogenes’
Lantern, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Pnyx,
the Roman Agora, as well as various sections of the
historical center of Athens that include a large number of
fine neoclassical buildings, the capital’s commercial
districts, the museum showcases of the Athens metro,
Lykabettus Hill—all of this and more comprises a
significant part of the attractions that help both the
foreign and the Greek visitor to get to know better this
truly unique capital city. Finally, there are numerous
public and private museums that focus on Greek culture and
the arts, including the Benaki Museum, the Nikos
Hadjikyriakos Gikas Gallery and the P. & A.
Kanellopoulos Museum. The Botanical Garden of Ioulia
and Alexandrou Diomidous with a variety of natural
ecosystems is the largest Botanic Garden in the Eastern
Mediterranean.
Athens has been a travel destination from antiquity right up
to the present day. It is also the city that hosted the
first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in the Panathenaic
Stadium. In 2004, 108 years later, Athens hosted the
revival of the Olympic Games. Plaka, one of the most
famous districts of Athens, was once the heart of the
ancient city, nestled around the Acropolis hill; today it
remains a number one tourist destination, together with the
other very old districts of Theseion and
Monastiraki. The hub of the modern-day city is
Syntagma (Constitution) Square in front of the stately
Greek Parliament building, housed in the old Royal
Palace and bordered by the National Gardens. Neoclassical
buildings, as mentioned above, are to be found scattered
around the city center, these including the Academy of
Athens, the University of Athens and the
National Library, the Zappeion Mansion, the
Numismatic Museum of Athens, also known as the Iliou
Melathron or Schliemann Mansion, a creation of
Ernst Ziller, the Old Parliament Mansion, the
Kostis Palamas Building, and much more.
Athens has 148 theaters, more than any other city worldwide,
among them the ancient Odeon of Herod Atticus which
each summer hosts the Athens Festival, the National
Theater, as well as such music centers as the Athens
Megaron Concert Hall which attracts world famous
performers. The Athens Planetarium is one of the
largest and best equipped digital planetariums in the world.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, in
the district of Faliro in the southern suburbs of Athens, is
an environmentally sustainable, internationally acclaimed
educational, arts and recreation complex which includes the
National Library of Greece and the Greek National
Lyric Scene (Opera House), as well as the unique 170 ,000
sqm Stavros Niarchos Park.
Of particular interest are certain suburbs of the northern
part of Athens, such as the verdant suburb of Kifissia
with its modern, luxury apartment buildings and the
Goulandri Natural History Museum, and Maroussi
with the Yiannis Tsarouchis Museum and the
Spatharion Shadow Theater Museum.
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