The best things to do in Athens are the Acropolis, the Acropolis Museum, the Ancient Agora and the National Archaeological Museum. Give the city 3 to 4 days, come in spring or October rather than midsummer, and book an Acropolis time slot on the Ministry of Culture's own e-ticket service before you fly.
Athens wears 5,000 years lightly. The ten entries below are the ones worth your time, each mapped, and the classical core is small enough to cross on foot in a morning. Read them as a route: the rock and its museum first, the two agoras below it, the National Archaeological Museum north of the centre, and the coast or a Saronic island once the marble starts to blur.
Ancient site· Acropolis of Athens, Dionysiou Areopagitou, 105 58 Athens
The rock carries the Parthenon, the Erechtheion with its porch of Caryatids, the small Temple of Athena Nike and the Propylaia gateway, all built inside a single generation in the fifth century BC. Entry runs on timed hour slots with a daily cap of 20,000 visitors, introduced in September 2023, so the slot you choose decides your morning. Book on hhticket.gr, the Ministry of Culture's own service, rather than through a reseller.
Bernard Tschumi's glass building sits at the foot of the hill and is laid out as a climb: finds from the slopes, then the archaic gallery, then a top floor turned to the same angle as the Parthenon itself, where the frieze is displayed at its original spacing with casts standing in for the sculptures held in London. The excavated neighbourhood under the entrance is visible through the floor.
Walk the Ancient Agora to the Temple of Hephaestus
Ancient site· Adrianou 24, 105 55 Athens
This was the working centre of classical Athens: the market, the law courts and the ground Socrates argued on. The Hephaisteion above it is the best preserved Doric temple in Greece, roof and all, because it spent centuries as a church. The Stoa of Attalos was rebuilt from its own foundations in the 1950s and now holds the site museum.
Built between 1866 and 1889 to Ludwig Lange's design, finished by Ernst Ziller, this is the largest museum in Greece and holds more than 11,000 exhibits. The gold of Mycenae, the bronze god pulled from the sea at Artemision and the corroded gearing of the Antikythera mechanism are all here, and none of them is on the Acropolis. It is a 20-minute walk north of Monastiraki.
Plaka is the old quarter wrapped around the north and east slopes of the Acropolis, and it is worth walking early before the coaches arrive. Keep climbing and the lanes narrow into Anafiotika, a pocket of whitewashed island houses built in the 19th century by stonemasons from Anafi who came to work on the new capital and put up homes in the style they knew.
The only stadium in the world built entirely of marble. Lykourgos laid out a stadium here around 330 BC, Herodes Atticus rebuilt it in marble by 144 AD, and it was excavated and restored for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Entry includes an audio guide in ten languages, and you can walk the track and sit in the emperor's throne.
Ancient site· Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, 105 57 Athens
Begun in the sixth century BC and only finished under Hadrian in 131 AD, which makes it roughly 638 years of building. It was the largest temple in Greece and 104 columns held the roof; sixteen survive, fifteen upright and one lying exactly where a storm dropped it in 1852. Hadrian's Arch stands at the corner of the site and costs nothing to look at.
At 277 metres this is the highest point in central Athens, and the only one that puts the Acropolis, the Saronic Gulf and the whole basin of the city in the same frame. The chapel of Agios Georgios sits on the summit. Walk up through the pines from Kolonaki, or take the funicular that runs from the top of Aristippou Street.
The Romans built Athens a second, tidier marketplace, and in one corner of it stands the most quietly astonishing building in the city. The octagonal Tower of the Winds carried sundials on its faces, a water clock inside and a bronze wind vane on the roof, with the eight winds carved as figures below the cornice. It is the oldest surviving meteorological station anywhere.
Walk the roof of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center
Culture· Syngrou Avenue 364, 176 74 Kallithea
Renzo Piano put the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera under one sloping green roof and set them in a park of Mediterranean planting that runs down towards the sea. It opened in 2016 as a gift from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to the Greek state, and it is the first cultural project of its scale in Europe to reach LEED Platinum. The park and the roof walk cost nothing.
Three to four. Two cover the Acropolis, its museum and the two agoras below it; a third takes the National Archaeological Museum and a neighbourhood; a fourth buys Cape Sounion, a Saronic island or Delphi. Add a day if you want the coast as well.
When is the best time to visit Athens?+
April, May, September and October. Warm enough for the sea, cool enough to climb the rock in the middle of the day, and clear of the July and August heat, when much of the city closes up and leaves for the islands.
Do you need to book Acropolis tickets in advance?+
Yes. Entry runs on timed hour slots with a daily cap of 20,000 visitors, and summer slots go well before the day. Book through hhticket.gr, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture's own e-ticket service, rather than through a reseller.
Is there still a combined ticket for the Athens archaeological sites?+
No. The multi-site pass that covered the Acropolis, both agoras, Hadrian's Library, Kerameikos, the Olympieion and Aristotle's Lyceum was discontinued in April 2025. Each site now sells its own ticket through the same official service.
How do you get around Athens?+
On foot and by metro. The classical centre from Monastiraki to the Acropolis Museum is walkable, and three metro lines plus a tram to the coast cover everything else on one ath.ena ticket. Line 3 runs straight from the airport to Syntagma.
Beyond the top ten
Best ancient sites in Athens
Five more classical and Roman sites inside the city, each within a short walk of the centre.
Athens buried its dead here from the Bronze Age into Roman times. The Sacred Gate, the Dipylon and a museum of carved grave stelae stand in one of the quietest corners of the centre.
Hadrian gave the city a library, lecture halls and a courtyard pool in 132 AD. The west wall and its row of Corinthian columns still front Areos Street.
The excavated grounds of the school Aristotle founded in 335 BC, uncovered in 1996 during work on a museum site and now open as a small archaeological park.
Carnival across the city, closing on Clean Monday when Athenians fly kites from Filopappou Hill. The dates move with Orthodox Easter.
25 Mar
Independence Day
Flags on every balcony and a parade through the centre for the 1821 revolution.
Apr–May
Orthodox Easter
The city empties for the islands and the villages. Midnight on Holy Saturday brings candles, bells and fireworks everywhere at once.
Jun–Aug
Athens Epidaurus Festival
Theatre, dance and music at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus under the Acropolis, and at the ancient theatre of Epidaurus.
Jun
Athens Pride
A week of talks, concerts and parties, closing with the parade through Syntagma Square.
Jun–Sep
Athens Open Air Film Festival
Screenings in squares, on rooftops and in the surviving open-air cinemas, several of them free.
Sep–Oct
Athens International Film Festival
Premieres and competition screenings across the central cinemas, known in Greek as Nychtes Premieras.
Nov
Athens Marathon, the Authentic
The original course, from the town of Marathon into the marble of the Panathenaic Stadium.
Getting around
Athens transport & airports
How to arrive, and how to cross a city whose classical centre is walkable.
ATH
Athens International Airport
Eleftherios Venizelos, east of the city at Spata. Metro Line 3 runs from the terminal into Syntagma and Monastiraki, and the X95 bus serves Syntagma around the clock.
Yellow city taxis are metered and easy to find, and the local hailing apps call the same cars. Runs between the airport and the centre are on a flat fare rather than the meter.
Pork or chicken grilled on a skewer over coals, eaten straight off the stick with bread or wrapped into a pita.
Gyros pita
Meat shaved off a vertical spit into a pita with tomato, onion, tzatziki and chips inside. Athens argues about which counter does it best and never settles.
Moussaka
Aubergine, spiced minced meat and a thick béchamel, baked and cut into squares. A dish to order at lunch, not at midnight.
Horiatiki
The village salad: tomato, cucumber, onion, pepper, olives and a slab of feta with oil and oregano. No lettuce, ever.
Grilled octopus
Hung to dry in the sun, then charred over coals and dressed with oil, vinegar and oregano. Order it with ouzo.
Fava
Yellow split peas from Santorini cooked down to a purée, topped with raw onion, capers and a pour of oil.
Koulouri
The sesame bread ring sold from street carts from first light. The Athenian breakfast, eaten walking.
Loukoumades
Yeast dough fried into small balls, soaked in honey and finished with cinnamon and crushed walnuts.
Athens fact sheet
Athens at a glance
The essentials worth knowing before you go.
Country
Greece
Region
Attica
Population
643,452 · 2.6M greater Athens
Founded
Inhabited since c. 3000 BCE
Nickname
The violet-crowned city
Language
Greek
Currency
Euro (€)
Time zone
EET · UTC+2
Calling code
+30 21
Airport
ATH
Power
230V · Type C/F
Emergency
112
Interesting facts
Athens has been lived in without a break for around 5,000 years, which makes it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe.
The Parthenon has almost no straight lines. Its columns lean inward and swell slightly at the middle, corrections that make a rigid building read as true to the eye.
The Panathenaic Stadium is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble, and it was restored to its ancient form for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896.
The Tower of the Winds in the Roman Agora carried sundials, an internal water clock and a bronze wind vane, and is the oldest surviving meteorological station anywhere.
Entry to the Acropolis has been capped at 20,000 visitors a day and sold in timed hour slots since September 2023, after years of queues backing down the ramp.
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