Ultimate Edition

Athens, Greece

Published for the city and the whole of Attica
GR Monday, October 12, 2026 Vol. CXCII · Est. 1834
Guides › Greece › Athens, Greece

The oldest city in Europe is also one of its youngest capitals

Athens has been inhabited for more than five thousand years and has been the capital of modern Greece only since 1834, when it was a village of a few thousand around the rock. It is now home to roughly a third of the country, spread across the Attic basin, hot, scruffy and far more alive than the postcard suggests.

The Ultimate City Desk
Athens, Greece
Athens, Greece — Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons · See source page

The rock has been settled since Neolithic times and was a Mycenaean citadel before the city below it invented democracy under Cleisthenes in 508 BC. The fifth century of Pericles built the Parthenon and produced Socrates, Sophocles and Thucydides; then came Macedon, Rome, a long Byzantine decline and nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule from 1458. When the new Greek kingdom made Athens its capital in 1834 — the masthead year, since the ancient founding has no date — it was a town of a few thousand people around the ruins, and the Bavarian king Otto's planners laid out the neoclassical city of Syntagma and the University. The first modern Olympics were run here in 1896. The Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922 doubled the population with refugees; occupation, famine and civil war followed the Second World War, and the junta of 1967–74 ended after the Polytechnic uprising. The 2004 Olympics, the debt crisis of the 2010s and the tourism boom since have each remade it.

Athens fills the basin between Hymettus, Penteli and Parnitha and runs down to the Saronic Gulf at Piraeus. The Acropolis is the centre; Plaka is the village under it, Monastiraki and Psyrri the bazaar and the bars to the north-west, Syntagma with the parliament to the north-east, and Kolonaki, on the slope of Lycabettus, the old money. Exarcheia, behind the Polytechnic, is the students' and anarchists' quarter; Omonia is the rougher end of the centre. South of the rock, Koukaki and Petralona are the neighbourhoods visitors have discovered; Pangrati, east, is the one Athenians live in, beside the marble Panathenaic Stadium. Kypseli, north, is the densest district in the city and its most mixed. Piraeus, ten kilometres south-west, is the port and a city of its own; the southern suburbs from Glyfada to Vouliagmeni are the Riviera, and the northern suburbs of Kifisia and Marousi are where the money moved.

The Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, is the best argument yet made for returning the marbles; the National Archaeological Museum is the greatest collection of Greek antiquity anywhere; the Benaki, the Cycladic and the EMST in the old Fix brewery cover the rest. Renzo Piano's Stavros Niarchos centre on the coast houses the National Opera and Library. The Athens Epidaurus Festival fills the Herodes Atticus odeon under the rock on summer nights. The food is taverna food — grilled meat, horta, fresh fish on the coast, souvlaki at any hour — and the coffee is a freddo espresso nursed for three hours. Olympiacos in Piraeus, Panathinaikos and AEK split the city three ways in football and basketball, and the basketball is at least as serious. Rebetiko in a Psyrri basement, rooftop bars facing the lit Parthenon, the Sunday flea market at Monastiraki and the Easter lamb are all part of the same city.

The hard parts are the heat, which now passes 40 degrees in July and August and brings wildfires to the edges of the basin most summers; the traffic and the motorbikes; the pavements; and the visible legacy of the crisis in shuttered shops, graffiti and buildings nobody has painted since 2010. Wages are among the lowest in the eurozone and rents have risen sharply with short-term lets and golden visas, so the young leave and the centre fills with visitors. Demonstrations and strikes close Syntagma and stop the metro with some regularity. What Athens offers is a capital that is still cheap by Western European standards, safe, with three clean metro lines and antiquities in the stations, the sea half an hour away by tram, the islands a ferry ride from Piraeus, a street life that runs past midnight, and the most famous building on earth visible from most rooftops.

Where People Live

The neighbourhoods

Plaka & Monastiraki

The old town under the Acropolis — Plaka's neoclassical lanes and tourist tavernas, the whitewashed Anafiotika above them, and Monastiraki's square, flea market and the Ancient Agora beside it. The pedestrian arc of Dionysiou Areopagitou runs round the rock.

Psyrri & Kerameikos

The former workshop quarter that became the bar district, with the Varvakios meat and fish market on its edge, street art on every wall, and the Kerameikos cemetery and Gazi's converted gasworks and clubs further west.

Syntagma & Kolonaki

Parliament and the evzones on the square, the National Garden behind, and Kolonaki climbing Lycabettus with the embassies, the Benaki and Cycladic museums, the galleries and the city's most expensive cafés.

Exarcheia

Behind the Polytechnic and the National Archaeological Museum: bookshops, record shops, anarchist politics, cheap tavernas and the best of the city's alternative bars. Under a slow process of gentrification that is fiercely resisted.

Koukaki & Petralona

South and west of the rock, the neighbourhoods short-term lets found first: low-rise streets, the Filopappou hill, good tavernas in Ano Petralona and the Acropolis Museum at the top of Koukaki.

Pangrati & Mets

East of the National Garden and the marble Panathenaic Stadium: apartment blocks, squares full of tables, the Goulandris museum and the First Cemetery. The central neighbourhood Athenians would choose.

Kypseli

North of the centre, the densest district in Athens, built up in the 1950s and now the most mixed — African, Balkan, Greek and, lately, artists — with the covered Fokionos Negri market and a proper street life.

Piraeus & the Riviera

The port for the islands and a city of half a million in its own right, with the Mikrolimano fish restaurants and Olympiacos; then the tram down the coast through Glyfada and Voula to the beaches and Vouliagmeni.

Restaurants & places to go

Athens Queens

athens stripclubs, live shows · Λεωφόρος Αθηνών 250, Χαϊδάρι, 12461 · athensqueens.gr

Indoors

Airports

Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos (ATH) 20 km to the centre

Attiki Odos, Spata Artemida 190 04, Greece — You board from the indoor waiting area — no need to plan for the weather. ✈ 52 airlines (Aegean Airlines, Olympic Airlines, easyJet, Ryanair…) · direct flights to 104 destinations incl. Barcelona, Heraklion, Larnaca, London, Rome… (OpenFlights route data).

Indoor
✈ Airlines & flight paths — 52 airlines, 104 direct destinations

Routes and aircraft from OpenFlights (open data; a point-in-time snapshot). * = codeshare. Linked destinations open their own guidebook. Flight numbers are not in the open data — they come from the airline or a paid schedule feed.

Getting there by ferry

E7

Ferry terminal · 7.9 km from the centre

Piraeus Ferry Port

Ferry terminal · 7.9 km from the centre · ANEK LINES

Αναχώρηση Μινωικών Γραμμών Κρήτης

Ferry terminal · 8.2 km from the centre · Minoan Lines

Πειραιάς

Ferry terminal · 9.2 km from the centre

Λάντζες Ρούσσης

Ferry terminal · 9.9 km from the centre

Perama

Ferry terminal · 14 km from the centre

Akrokeramos - Psyttaleia

Ferry route · Κέντρο Επεξεργασίας Λυμάτων

Piraeus - Salamina (Selinia)

Ferry route

Piraeus - Kamatero

Ferry route

Piraeus - Aegina (Souvala)

Ferry route

Piraeus - Aegina

Ferry route

Piraeus - Agistri (Skala)

Ferry route

Piraeus - Aegina - Agistri

Ferry route · Hellenic Seaways

Piraeus - Agistri (Myloi)

Ferry route

Local transit

OASA

Metro, tram, bus · Athens' metro, trams, trolleybuses and buses. · Fares: Ath.ena card or ticket · Airport: Metro Line 3 from the airport, about 40 min

Trains & rail

Hellenic Railways Organisation

Rail operator

Hellenic Train

Rail operator

Private aviation

On-demand charter, jet cards and the semi-private scheduled carriers that serve this city.

Air Charter Service

Broker · Any aircraft via operators worldwide · Global charter broker with 30+ offices; private jets, group charters and cargo.

ExecuJet

FBO, charter, management · Managed fleet · FBO network and management across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

Flexjet

Fractional, jet card · Embraer Praetor, Bombardier Challenger & Global, Gulfstream · Fractional ownership and jet cards in North America and Europe.

Global Jet

Charter, management · Large-cabin & VIP airliners · Geneva-based operator known for large-cabin and VIP airliner charters.

Jet Aviation

Charter, management, FBO, MRO · Managed fleet worldwide · General Dynamics company: charter, completions and FBOs in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the US.

Living Here

Practical notes for residents

Getting about

  • The Metro has three lines — the old green line 1 from Piraeus to Kifisia, red line 2 and blue line 3 to the airport — with a fourth under construction; the tram runs from the centre to the coast, and OASA buses and trolleybuses cover everything else, along with the Proastiakos suburban rail. An Ath.ena card or ticket, or a contactless bank card, works on all of them.
  • The centre is walkable, and the pedestrian arc around the Acropolis is one of the best urban walks in Europe; the pavements elsewhere are narrow, parked on and broken, and the drivers are not looking for you. Cycling is for the coast path.
  • Eleftherios Venizelos airport is about 40 minutes on metro line 3, with a higher airport fare; the X95 bus runs to Syntagma around the clock, and yellow taxis charge a fixed fare to the centre. Ferries leave Piraeus and Rafina for the islands; trains from Larissa station reach Thessaloniki in around four hours.
  • A car is a liability in the centre and only useful for the beaches and the Attic countryside; the motorbike is the local solution and the source of half the noise.

Health

  • Evangelismos, in Kolonaki, is the largest public hospital in the centre; Laiko and Attikon are the other big ones, and Hygeia and Metropolitan are the private groups foreigners use. The national health system (ESY) covers residents; it was hollowed out by austerity and is recovering, and waits can be long.
  • Dial 112, or 166 for an ambulance. Pharmacies, marked with a green cross, are excellent and sell many things over the counter that need a prescription elsewhere; each one posts the duty rota for nights and Sundays.
  • EU and UK visitors can use the EHIC or GHIC in public hospitals; others should carry insurance. Private clinics speak English and are used to tourists.

Work & study

  • The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, founded in 1837, is the oldest in the modern Greek state; the National Technical University (the Polytechnic), the Athens University of Economics and Business and Panteion make up the rest of the public system, with the American College of Greece the main private one.
  • Shipping — Piraeus is the office of the largest merchant fleet in the world — tourism, government, banking, energy and a technology sector that has grown since the crisis are the employers; wages are low by eurozone standards and a generation of graduates left for northern Europe in the 2010s.
  • Greek is needed for most local work and all bureaucracy; the tax number (AFM) is the first document, and the digital-nomad visa and the gov.gr portal have made the paperwork easier than it was.

Money & manners

  • Euros; cards are now accepted almost everywhere since the crisis made card terminals compulsory, though a village taverna may still prefer cash. Tip by rounding up or leaving 5 to 10%; VAT is included. Water is brought to the table without asking.
  • Athenians eat late, argue loudly, smoke more than the law allows and take hospitality seriously; a coffee is a two-hour appointment and the afternoon quiet from three to five is still observed in the suburbs. Dress modestly in churches and monasteries. Easter, not Christmas, is the big holiday.
  • Summers are long, dry and very hot, with July and August regularly past 40 degrees; winters are mild and wet with a rare snowfall. April to June and September to October are the months, and the sea is swimmable from May into October.

Sources

Everything above is checkable