Athens Travel Guide
Travel guide to Athens, Greece with comprehensive information about events, shopping, and major Athens sporting events to help you enjoy your visit more.
Athens Overview
The capital city of Greece, and one of the most important places in the ancient world, Athens was the birthplace of democracy, of literature, and of philosophy. Athens is the city that gave the world art, theatre, architecture, and some of the most influential ideas and movements of all time.
This beautiful, confusing city, at once terrifyingly large, and yet very much on the human scale, Athens is both modern and ancient, filled with monuments of the past, and signposts to the future. Athens is forever changing, and yet reassuringly constant.
Whether you visit Athens on a short break, or use it as the starting point for a more comprehensive tour of Greece and the Greek islands, it is a city that will wholly entrance you, and entertain you with its myriad charms.
Top Athens Attractions
The most important attraction of Greece, and its symbol to the world is the famous Acropolis. Sitting atop a hill overlooking the city, this ancient building is perhaps the most important and influential structure in the world. Much imitated by generations of architects from all over the world, its timeless beauty is enhanced rather than detracted from by its dereliction.
The best time to visit the Acropolis is at dusk, when the temperatures are more comfortable, and the fading light catches the stonework, to provide a glowing effect that is unmissable.
Shopping in Athens
For top quality designer labels, head for the Kolonaki district of Athens, where you will find the most upmarket boutiques in the city. Prices in them are usually less than in the UK, so you can save quite a lot on clothes in Athens.
For more mundane purposes, head to the malls and outlet stores around Omonia and Syntagma where there are plenty of souvenir shops, and a number of back street markets.
Monastiraki's Bazaar is open from Monday until Friday, and is a large, sometimes confusing market where you can buy almost anything. Carpets, folk art, and jewellery are the best value souvenirs from Athens and are widely sold at the market alongside tacky resin models of the Acropolis.
Athens Sporting Events
AEK Athens and Panathaniakos are the two largest teams in the Greek league, and battle against each other every year for the national championship, as well as featuring in the major European Competitions. Since the Greek National Team won the European championships in 2004, the sport has enjoyed a high profile, and tickets for the bigger matches can be very hard to come by.
The city of Athens successfully hosted the Olympics in 2004, and boasts many state of the art sporting facilities as a legacy of this. Many are open to the public, and offer the chance to occupy the same space as some of the top sportsmen and women in the world.
