Neighborhoods

Neos Kosmos, close up

Time Out ranked Neos Kosmos number 3 in The 40 coolest neighbourhoods in the world in 2026 (published 16 Sep 2026): Third overall and the highest placed European neighbourhood on the list.

A little history

The name means new world. The district grew in the 20th century as a working class settlement shaped by successive waves of newcomers, from Asia Minor refugees to later internal and international migrants, and the old Dourgouti quarter became one of the denser residential parts of the city. Small traces of that past survive, such as the Stoa Iatrou courtyard off Amvrosiou Frantzi, which ran as the Evropi summer cinema from 1943 to 1971.

What it feels like

Mostly residential and unpolished, a short ride south of the Acropolis area, with Syngrou Avenue along one edge. Old bakeries and neighbourhood tavernas now sit beside a new wave of wine bars, all day cafés and small restaurants, while Onassis Stegi anchors the arts scene.

Getting there

Metro: Neos Kosmos station on Metro Line 2 (red line), three stops south of Syntagma; neighbouring stations are Syngrou Fix and Agios Ioannis. The metro station opened on 15 Nov 2000. Exits lead to Ilia Iliou street and Efstratiou Pissa street.

Tram: The same station is an interchange with Athens Tram Line 6 (stop opened 19 Jul 2004). The neighbouring tram stops are Kasomouli toward Syntagma and Baknana toward Pikrodafni.

Tip: For the Baknana Street bakeries, ride the tram one stop to Baknana; Lostre Kouzina is a short walk from Agios Ioannis metro.

See and do

• Onassis Stegi. Cultural centre on Syngrou Avenue for theatre, dance, music and exhibitions, with the Amphibian restaurant on its sixth floor.
• Stoa Iatrou courtyard. Hidden courtyard off Amvrosiou Frantzi, once the Evropi summer cinema (1943 to 1971), now home to Vaggelis & Alekos.
• Chronokapsoula. Vintage toy shop that Time Out includes in its perfect day in the area.
• Baknana Street. Everyday shopping street with the two bakeries Time Out recommends, Vlachos and Mountrichas.
• Neos Kosmos Block Party. Street party that Time Out says usually takes place in early October; check the current dates before you go.

Eat

• Naif (breakfast)
• Lalos (coffee and cinnamon rolls)
• Lostre Kouzina (lunch)
• Vlachos Bakery and Pastry
• Mountrichas
• Mortis (Armenian grill named by Time Out; address not verified)
• Phita
• Groovy Mango (Thai)
• Amphibian (fine dining at Onassis Stegi)
• Vaggelis & Alekos
• Tomas Kebab and To Trikyklo

Drink

• Epta Martyres (wine bar)
• Amore Spritzeria (aperitivo)
• teras (café, cocktails and furniture showroom)

Stay

• Incanto Boutique Suites (Time Out's suggested base)

Best time to go

Autumn and spring, according to Time Out.

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Pangrati, close up

A little history

Pangrati is named after an ancient sanctuary of Hercules Pankrates, the all powerful. Its western edge holds the marble Panathenaic Stadium, which hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, and the First Cemetery of Athens. The district grew as a residential extension east of the old city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, took in refugees from Asia Minor after 1922 and filled with elegant interwar apartment blocks, while its eastern edge moved out as the city spread between the wars. Writers and musicians made it home, among them the poet Giorgos Seferis and the composer Manos Hatzidakis, and in the 2010s it became one of the city's most sought after addresses, with rising rents to match. The Goulandris Foundation's museum opened at Agios Spyridon in October 2019.

What it feels like

A large, leafy and mostly residential district just east of the Panathenaic Stadium and the National Garden, with tree lined streets, interwar apartment blocks and real neighbourhood squares such as Plastira, Varnava and Profitis Ilias. Old bakeries, butchers and family tavernas sit beside newer wine bars, brunch places and independent bookshops, and it feels like everyday Athens rather than a sightseeing stop.

Getting there

Metro: There is no metro station inside Pangrati yet. The nearest is Evangelismos on Metro Line 3 (blue line), one stop and about 2 minutes from Syntagma on the STASY timetable; Spyrou Merkouri street runs from Pangrati Square toward it, and the walk to the Goulandris Foundation takes about 12 minutes. Every Saturday Lines 2 and 3 run a 24 hour service, according to STASY. A future Line 4 station called Pangrati/Kaisariani on Imittou Street has been proposed.

Trolleybus: lines 2, 4 and 11 serve Pangrati and run through Plateia Plastira (OASA line list and OASA route notice of 3 Oct 2026, read 5 Oct 2026). Bus 054 and bus 732 do not serve the district. Plan your trip on oasa.gr.

Tip: Plastira Square, a good starting point, is about 18 minutes on foot from Syntagma and 8 minutes from the Panathenaic Stadium.

See and do

• Panathenaic Stadium (Kallimarmaro). The marble stadium on the western edge of the district, where the first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896.
• First Cemetery of Athens. The city's official cemetery, within Pangrati's limits, often described as an open air museum of neoclassical sculpture.
• Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation. A major private collection of modern art at 13 Eratosthenous, open since October 2019 (already on our Galleries page).
• National Gallery, Alexandros Soutsos Museum. Home to the largest collection of Greek painting, at Vasileos Konstantinou 50; Wikipedia counts it as one of Pangrati's landmarks (already on our Galleries page).
• Profitis Ilias Square and Pangrati Park. The everyday heart of the area, with cafés, a playground and a church, and a small shady park on the eastern side.
• Varnava and Proskopon squares. Two squares known for eating out: Varnava behind the stadium with its tavernas, Proskopon behind the Presidential Mansion with restaurants, bars and cafés.
• Independent bookshops around Damareos street. A small cluster of independent bookshops around Damareos and Pangrati Square, good for browsing before coffee.

Eat

• Spondi. Long standing fine dining address; book ahead and check the current menu.
• Mavro Provato. Modern Greek meze taverna, popular with locals and visitors; reserve for evenings and weekends.
• Karavitis. Older, classic Greek taverna on the edge of Pangrati and Mets for meze and grilled dishes.
• Vyrinis and Vyrini's Stoa. Relaxed Greek food with a neighbourhood feel, good for staying local at dinner.

Drink

No bar was verified open in 2025 or 2026 by name in the time available; the 2026 guides mention wine bars and specialty cafés without naming them reliably. See bars and cafes for places we have checked. Update, 10 Oct 2026: our venue pages now list 13 bars and cafes in Pangrati by name, each with its sources: bars and cafes.

Best time to go

Late afternoon into the evening, when Profitis Ilias and Plastira squares fill up, and weekend lunchtimes for the tavernas. Our suggestion, based on the 2026 guides cited.

More about Pangrati, checked 10 Oct 2026

We went back to Pangrati's own history and to the official pages of its sights. Everything below comes from the pages named in brackets and in the sources, read on 10 Oct 2026.

A little more history

• The name is usually traced to an ancient sanctuary of Herakles Pankrates, the all powerful. The shrine was found and dug by the archaeologist Giannis Miliadis in 1953 to 1954, northeast of the Stadium where Vasileos Konstantinou meets Vasileos Georgiou B, during pipe works in the old bed of the Ilissos (Greek Wikipedia).
• An older explanation, from before the excavation, linked the name to a monk called Pankratios who was said to have lived at a small chapel in the area under Ottoman rule (Greek Wikipedia).
• In the 19th century the land around the Ilissos and the Stadium was known as Vatrachonisi, frog island, after an islet that formed in the river bed and the frogs that lived in and around the water (Greek Wikipedia).
• Pangrati was planned rather than left to grow on its own: its first street plan, drawn for what was then called the Vatrachonisi district, is dated 8 January 1886 and covered 931 stremmata (about 93 hectares) between the Ilissos and Filolaou and Dikaiarchou streets (Greek Wikipedia).
• By 1915 a horse drawn tram linked the new suburb with the city, running from the Zappeion to the corner of Eftychidou and Ymittou streets, the old Pangrati terminus (Greek Wikipedia).
• The district boomed between the wars, as Athens spread fast after the arrival of the refugees of 1922. Life centred on Eftychidou street and on Ymittou street, which drew people from the nearby refugee districts of Vyronas and Kaisariani; Ymittou is still Pangrati's main shopping street (Greek Wikipedia).

Where it starts and stops

• Pangrati lies east of Vasilissis Sofias Avenue and reaches north to the Hilton hotel and the National Gallery, east to Nikiforidi street and Deliolani Square, and south to the First Cemetery (Greek Wikipedia).
• Its neighbours are Kolonaki to the west, Ilisia and Kaisariani to the north, the municipalities of Vyronas and Dafni Ymittos to the east, and Neos Kosmos to the south (Wikipedia).
• The old core grew up east and south east of the Ilissos river, today's Vasileos Konstantinou Avenue, which was the edge of the city in the late 19th century, in the stretch from the Kallimarmaro to Profitis Ilias hill (Greek Wikipedia).

Places to see, with official hours and tickets

• The Panathenaic Stadium on Vasileos Konstantinou Avenue was built in 330/329 BC by the Athenian orator and statesman Lycurgus, rebuilt by Herodes Atticus in 140 to 143 AD, and clad again in marble by Georgios Averoff for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 (Panathenaic Stadium).
• Panathenaic Stadium opening hours: daily 08:00 to 19:00 from March to October and 08:00 to 17:00 from November to February, with last entry at closing time (Panathenaic Stadium).
• Panathenaic Stadium tickets: 12 euros full, 6 euros for students showing a student card; free for children up to 6, and for disabled visitors and the person with them. The ticket includes the Stadium museum and a 30 minute audio guide, and the ticket desk takes cash or card (Panathenaic Stadium).
• The benefactor Georgios Averoff paid to refit the Stadium in white marble from Pendeli, the same quarry used for the Acropolis, which gave it its Greek name Kallimarmaro, beautiful marble; This is Athens calls it the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble (This is Athens).
• The Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art opened in October 2019 and lifted the area's profile with visitors, who were already coming for the Kallimarmaro stadium and the First Cemetery (This is Athens).
• Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation, 13 Eratosthenous: open Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to Monday 10:00 to 18:00 and Friday 10:00 to 20:00, closed on Tuesdays and on the main public holidays; the ticket office sells tickets until 30 minutes before closing (Goulandris Foundation).
• Goulandris Foundation tickets: the collection costs 12 euros, or 9 euros for over 65s, ages 13 to 26, students, European Youth Card holders, the registered unemployed and conscripts; entry is free for children up to 12 and for disabled visitors with a companion. The temporary exhibition Belle Époque runs from 31 October 2026 to 15 February 2027, with tickets at 16 and 13 euros (Goulandris Foundation).
• The First Cemetery of Athens, at the southern edge of the district, is the oldest cemetery in the city. It was officially founded in 1838 under mayor D. Kallifronas, on land given to the city by Ioannis Paparrigopoulos in return for a watering fountain, and was first called the cemetery of Agios Lazaros, after the church it grew around (City of Athens cemeteries).
• Today the First Cemetery covers about 162,000 square metres with 12,300 graves. It is valued as an open air collection of 19th century Greek sculpture, with tombs by architects such as Kaftantzoglou and Ziller and by sculptors such as Halepas, many of them from Tinos (City of Athens cemeteries).
• Former prime ministers, film stars and the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann are buried in the First Cemetery. One bronze of a gaunt mother holding her baby honours all who lived through the Nazi occupation, and the poet Kostas Varnalis has a striking bronze on his grave (This is Athens).

Squares and viewpoints

• The Stadium's own page singles out the view from the top rows of Section 21, which takes in the Acropolis and the Parthenon, the Zappeion, the National Garden and Lycabettus (Panathenaic Stadium).
• To skip climbing some 50 rows of the Stadium, walk up Eratosthenous and turn into Archimidous street to the rear entrance; a track there circles the upper rim and is a favourite with local joggers, and a path through the Ardittos woods leads to one of the best views over central Athens and the Acropolis (This is Athens).
• Platia Proskopon is a small, leafy square hemmed in by buildings on two sides and a narrow street on the third. Its cafes and restaurants spill up Amynta and Archelaou streets, politicians are not a rare sight at its tables, and Manos Hatzidakis made Magemenos Avlos here his favourite haunt (This is Athens).
• At Platia Varnava the life is around the edges rather than in the middle, running on to the smaller Platia Plastira and down Empedokleous, a shady, partly pedestrian street with mulberry trees; a farmers' market fills a side of the square on Fridays (This is Athens).
• Plastira Square is named after General Nikolaos Plastiras, the former prime minister, who spent his last years in a small house beside the Panathenaic Stadium; residents asked for the name, and the square sits where Eftychidou, Archimidous, Empedokleous and four other streets meet (Greek Wikipedia).
• The Pangrati Grove (Alsos Pangratiou) was planted with pines in 1908 by a forestry society, with the backing of Queen Sophia, on 30 stremmata (about 3 hectares) given by the Petraki Monastery; it passed to the City of Athens in 1936, and before the German occupation it had a zoo, which the Germans destroyed (Greek Wikipedia).

What locals and the press say

• This is Athens calls Pangrati the typical middle class neighbourhood with an artistic air, long home to musicians, writers, directors, academics and journalists; the composer Manos Hatzidakis and the poet George Seferis both lived here (This is Athens).
• Cafe life radiates from two squares, Proskopon and Varnava, and the area also has shops, small bars, green spaces, a couple of galleries, an art house cinema and a theatre (This is Athens).
• It is one of the most sought after parts of the city: flats in Pangrati and Mets have always been hard to find, because people who move in rarely move out (This is Athens).
• Pangrati had 35,173 residents at the 2011 census (Greek Wikipedia).
• Time Out's 2026 ranking of the world's 40 coolest neighbourhoods put Neos Kosmos, Pangrati's neighbour to the south, at number 3, describing it as long overshadowed by nearby Koukaki and Pangrati; Pangrati itself is not on the 2026 list (Time Out, 16 Sep 2026).
• In May 2025 Athinorama asked whether Pangrati was tipping from a lively neighbourhood into a mass night out strip, pointing to new standing bars, double parking spreading through its dense streets, and the housing crisis and short term lets changing districts that are still mostly residential (Athinorama, 18 May 2025).

Getting there, in more detail

• The Stadium is about 1,000 metres from Syntagma, Akropoli and Evangelismos metro stations (lines 2 and 3). Its own page lists trolley lines 2, 4, 10 and 11 and city bus routes 90, 209 and 550 to the Stadium stop, and the tram (line 6) to the Zappeio stop; there is bicycle parking at the entrance (Panathenaic Stadium).
• For Agios Spyridon Square, the Goulandris Foundation gives trolley lines 2, 4 and 11 and bus 209 to the Ag. Spyridon stop, about 15 metres away, and trolley 10 and bus 550 to the Stadio stop, about 200 metres away. Evangelismos metro (line 3) is about 900 metres away and Syntagma (lines 2 and 3) about 950 metres (Goulandris Foundation).
• Evangelismos, the nearest metro station to Pangrati, is on Line 3, the next stop after Syntagma towards Douk. Plakentias and the airport, about two minutes on (STASY).
• Evangelismos station, on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, serves both Kolonaki and Pangrati. Of its two exits only the Rizari exit has a lift, and a permanent archaeological display fills the first basement level (This is Athens, accessible routes).

Did you know

• Manos Hatzidakis lived for 27 years, from 1936 to 1962, in a house on Konstantinou Manou street, since renamed Manou Hatzidaki street, and Proskopon Square is informally called after him. The Nobel prize winning poet George Seferis lived on Agras street, beside the Stadium (Greek Wikipedia).
• Pangrati is part of the City of Athens, not a separate suburb. Many people still think otherwise, partly because after 1922 it became the shopping and entertainment centre for the south eastern districts, and partly because it borders the real suburbs of Vyronas and Kaisariani (Greek Wikipedia).
• Cine Palas at Ymittou 109, one of the oldest cinemas in Athens with a century of history in Pangrati, faces permanent closure: in June 2026 a residents' assembly called a rally outside it after the Ministry of Culture declined to list it as a monument, amid talk that it could become a supermarket (Rosa, 18 Jun 2026).
• A small Ilissos tributary, the Ellison, once ran through the district along the line of Frynis, Spyrou Merkouri, Archelaou and Amynta streets, past the Pangrati Grove, and met the Ilissos on Vasileos Konstantinou near the Truman statue (Greek Wikipedia).
• Besides the first modern Olympics in 1896, the Panathenaic Stadium hosted the 1906 Intercalated Games, a session of the International Olympic Committee in 1934, and in 2004 the Olympic archery and the finish of the men's and women's marathons (Panathenaic Stadium).

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Pangrati (12)
• Tavernas in Pangrati (9)
• Bars in Pangrati (10)
• Cafes in Pangrati (3)
• Souvlaki and street food in Pangrati (7)
• Bakeries in Pangrati (11)

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Petralona (with Ano Petralona), close up

A little history

The name is usually explained as petrina alonia, stone threshing floors, after the rocky ground where grain was threshed before the city took the area in during the late 19th century. It was also nicknamed Katsikadika, after the goatherds who grazed animals here until Athens banned goats from the city in February 1925. The Athens to Piraeus railway, opened on 27 February 1869 and now Metro Line 1, splits the district into hillside Ano Petralona and flatter Kato Petralona toward Pireos Street. Much of the modern neighbourhood took shape in the 20th century with working class and refugee settlement after 1922, and Petralona station opened on 22 November 1954. Since the 2010s rising property prices, new cafés and changes in how homes are used have reshaped parts of it, though many streets keep their everyday feel.

What it feels like

Low rise and residential, at the foot of Filopappou Hill and the Hill of the Nymphs, a short walk from Thissio and the Acropolis but with a slower rhythm. Ano Petralona climbs toward the hill with quiet lanes, older houses and the small Merkouri Square; Kato Petralona is denser and more workaday toward Pireos Street. Its tavernas and meze places mostly serve locals, with newer bars and cafés in between.

Getting there

Metro: Petralona station on Metro Line 1 (green line), run by STASY, sits at street level between the two halves of the district. The neighbouring stations are Thiseio toward Kifissia and Tavros toward Piraeus, so Thissio, Monastiraki and Victoria are a few stops away and Piraeus is in the other direction. The station opened on 22 November 1954 and was rebuilt in 2003. On the STASY Line 1 timetable, Petralona is 13 minutes from Piraeus and about 4 minutes from Monastiraki; the first train toward Kifissia leaves Petralona at 05:12 and the last at 00:27, with trains every 6 to 7.5 minutes for most of the weekday and every 10.5 minutes at weekends.

Tip: From the station it is about a 10 minute walk to the southern paths of Filopappou Hill; Troon Street leads up toward Merkouri Square.

See and do

• Filopappou Hill and the Philopappos Monument. Wooded hill above the district with views of the Acropolis and the Saronic Gulf; the monument is at the summit.
• Hill of the Nymphs and the Athens Observatory. The quieter neighbouring hill, topped by the historic 19th century observatory, which opens for visits or events at certain times.
• Pnyx. The hillside meeting place of the ancient Athenian assembly, uphill from Ano Petralona; wear comfortable shoes.
• Merkouri Square and Troon Street. The social centre of Ano Petralona, named after the actress and Culture Minister Melina Mercouri (minister from 1981 to 1989), with cafés and tavernas spilling outside on warm evenings.
• Zefyros open air cinema. One of the oldest summer cinemas in Athens, on Troon Street since 1938; summer only, films in the original language with Greek subtitles.
• Kerameikos archaeological site. The ancient cemetery and city walls, about 10 to 15 minutes north on foot.

Eat

• Oikonomou. Old cookshop taverna at Kydantidon and Troon with a daily menu of oven dishes; it opens for lunch from about 13:00 and dishes sell out as the afternoon goes on.
• To Steki tou Ilia. Older grill house known for lamb chops, with tables on the pedestrian street; book at busy times.
• Roska. Seafood and grilled dishes; check the menu and book on Friday and Saturday.
• Stamatopoulos. Neighbourhood meze place in Ano Petralona for an easy evening.
• Aglio & Olio. Newer place with Italian and Greek influences.

Drink

Klouvi bar and Blue Bamboo appear in This is Athens' undated local's guide but were not verified open in 2025 or 2026, so they are left out. See bars and cafes for places we have checked.

Best time to go

An evening walk, ideally combined with Filopappou Hill or Thissio; for Oikonomou go at lunch, between 13:00 and 14:30, for the full choice. Filopappou is at its best at sunset.

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Kerameikos and Gazi, close up

Kerameikos and Gazi sit side by side at the western end of Ermou Street: one is the great cemetery of ancient Athens, now an archaeological site with its own museum; the other grew around the city's 19th century gasworks, today the Technopolis arts centre and the Industrial Gas Museum. A short walk down Pireos Street brings you to the Benaki Museum's contemporary building at number 138. The metro station between them is called Kerameikos and opens onto Kerameikos Square.

A little history

The Ministry of Culture calls Kerameikos the most important cemetery of ancient Athens; a city listing links the name to the old community of potters, the Kerameis, settled on the banks of the Eridanos river. The German Archaeological Institute still excavates there, and the site museum opened in 1938. In the modern city the area changed with the gasworks, founded in 1857 by François Théophile Feraldi and taken over by the City of Athens in 1938. The plant closed on 1 October 1984 after strong protests from the residents of Gazi; in 1986 Melina Mercouri, then culture minister, had it listed as a historic monument, and in 1999 the city gave Technopolis the job of running it. The Industrial Gas Museum opened there in 2013.

Getting there

Metro Line 3 (blue): Kerameikos station is on Line 3, two minutes from Monastiraki and four from Syntagma on the STASY timetable; trains from the airport reach it in about 44 minutes. Its exit, named Technopolis, has a lift up to Kerameikos Square and the station is fully accessible. Works notice: from 16 September 2026, Sunday to Thursday, the Eleonas, Kerameikos and Monastiraki stations close at 21:40 for rail replacement works; X24 replacement buses stop for Kerameikos at the Sidera stop on Iera Odos.

Metro Line 1 (green): The Ministry of Culture gives Thiseio station (metro and electric railway, Line 1) as the stop for the Kerameikos site, and the Benaki Museum gives Petralona station for Pireos 138. Useful in the evening while the Line 3 works close Kerameikos early.

Bus and trolleybus: The Ministry of Culture lists bus 049 from Omonia and Piraeus and trolleybus 21, both to the Gkazi stop. The Benaki Museum lists buses 035, 049, 227, 815, 838, 841, 842 and 914 and trolleybus 21 for Pireos 138. Check each line on OASA before travelling (not checked on oasa.gr tonight).

See and do

Squares and open spaces

• Kerameikos Square. Where the lift from the Technopolis exit of Kerameikos metro station comes up.
• Technopolis open spaces. The gasworks yard with the playground, the Gym Park and the SkyWalk; on big event days in summer and autumn 2026 these close to visitors at 17:30.

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Kerameikos (3)
• Tavernas in Kerameikos (1)
• Tavernas in Gazi (1)
• Bars in Kerameikos (2)
• Cafes in Kerameikos (1)
• Souvlaki and street food in Gazi (1)

Best time to go

• Kerameikos opens at 08:00 and closes mid afternoon in winter: go in the morning, then cross to Gazi.
• Friday and Saturday evenings: the Benaki on Pireos stays open to 22:00.
• Sunday to Thursday evenings while the Line 3 works last: Kerameikos station shuts at 21:40, so walk to Thiseio (Line 1) or take the X24.

Practical

• Accessibility. Kerameikos metro station and the Kerameikos museum are fully accessible; most of the archaeological site can be visited in a wheelchair with a companion via Ermou 148.
• On foot and by car. Kerameikos sits at the end of the pedestrian stretch of Ermou Street, towards Pireos; by car, parking is possible only around Gazi on Pireos. No animals at Kerameikos except dogs accompanying disabled visitors.
• Pets. At the Benaki on Pireos, pets on a lead may enter the shop and courtyards, not the galleries or cafe; guide and assistance dogs everywhere.

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Exarcheia and Neapoli, close up

Exarcheia and Neapoli sit side by side north of the old university quarter, between Patision Street and the slopes of Lycabettus. The official city guide describes Exarcheia as a mix of townhouses from before the Second World War and ageing postwar apartment blocks with a strong sense of community: publishing houses, bookbinders, the city's liveliest farmers' market, rembetiko tavernas, old coffee houses and bars, with the National Archaeological Museum and the Epigraphic Museum inside its boundaries. Neapoli, which the same guide calls the city's second oldest neighbourhood after Plaka, is built into the slopes of Lycabettus towards Kolonaki. A report from September 2026 describes Exarcheia as a long standing meeting point for grassroots organisations, left wing and anti authoritarian groups, and migrants and refugees who found support there, now being reshaped by rising rents, tourism and new investment; its central square has been fenced off for the Metro Line 4 works.

A little history

Neapoli grew in the mid 19th century as an unplanned northward spread of the city and joined the town plan in 1865, when today's Emmanouil Benaki Street was named Proastiou, the suburb street. The name Exarcheia is linked to Vasileios Exarchos, a merchant from Konitsa in Epirus who ran a general store on Themistokleous Street from the early 1880s; before that the area was known as Pitharadika, after workshops making clay jars. The Epigraphic Museum was founded in 1885 by its own account (1895 in the Ministry directory), and Strefi Hill, quarried until the 1920s, opened as a park in 1938. The Polytechnic, founded in 1837, moved into its still unfinished Patision Street buildings in 1873, completed in 1878. In November 1973 its students rose against the military dictatorship until a tank broke through the gates early on 17 November. After 1974 Exarcheia became a gathering place for students, intellectuals, the parliamentary and extra parliamentary left and anti authoritarian groups, and the police killing of 15 year old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on Mesolongiou Street in December 2008 set off unrest across Greece. Today, a September 2026 report says, rising rents, tourism, property investment, redevelopment and a larger police presence are changing the area, while the Metro Line 4 works keep its square closed.

Getting there

Metro Line 1 (green): The National Archaeological Museum gives Omonia and Victoria as its metro stations. On the STASY Line 1 timetable Omonia is two minutes from Monastiraki and Victoria two minutes beyond Omonia towards Kifissia. Daytime trains run every 6 to 7.5 minutes Monday to Friday and every 10.5 minutes on Saturday and Sunday.

Metro Line 2 (red): Omonia and Panepistimio, just south of the area, are on Line 2. On the STASY timetable Panepistimio is two minutes from Syntagma and Omonia two minutes further on. From Panepistimio the first train towards Anthoupoli leaves at 05:41 and the last at 00:24 Monday to Thursday and Sunday, or 02:01 on Friday; STASY runs Lines 2 and 3 for 24 hours every Saturday, airport trains excluded. The STASY site showed normal operation on 6 October 2026. Omonia and Panepistimio closed at 21:40 on several nights in spring 2026 for rail replacement works, which STASY said on 7 August 2026 were 98 percent complete.

Metro Line 4 (orange), under construction: Line 4 is to have an Exarcheia station under Exarcheia Square, between Alexandras and Akadimia (the interchange with Panepistimio), on the first section from Alsos Veikou to Goudi. In November 2023, after works began at the square, Elliniko Metro said the station's entrances, lifts and shafts would take 243 of the square's 2,984 square metres. One of the two tunnel boring machines has stood still in Kypseli since 8 May 2026 after damage to apartment buildings there, and To Vima reported that no work was going on at the Exarcheia worksite while the square stayed closed behind metal barriers. On 24 September 2026 the City of Athens radio station Athina 9.84 reported that the completion date had officially moved from 20 June 2029 (Kathimerini had reported the end of 2029 in September 2025) to 3 September 2032, after an extension approved on 9 February 2026. Elliniko Metro's August 2026 progress photos, posted on 30 September 2026, show the Akadimia and Alexandras worksites but none from Exarcheia. The station will not open for years, so use Lines 1 and 2.

See and do

Squares and open spaces

• Exarcheia Square. The neighbourhood's central square, 2,984 square metres by Elliniko Metro's figures, fenced off for the Line 4 station since works began in 2023. To Vima reported in 2026 that no construction was going on, plants were growing back and the square remained closed behind metal barriers; on 15 February 2026, after carnival events, residents opened the barriers. Elliniko Metro said in 2023 that trees removed from the worksite would go to the City of Athens nursery and later be replanted in green spaces near the square.
• Strefi Hill. A limestone hill and park on the border of Exarcheia and Neapoli, northwest of Lycabettus, about 150 metres high. The Strefis family quarried it until the 1920s; after trees were planted it opened to the public in 1938, and the family gave it to the City of Athens in 1963. Paths and terraces look out over the Acropolis, the city and Lycabettus, and there is a small open air theatre, a basketball court, a playground and a cafe. Kallidromiou Street leads up to it. No official opening hours were found.
• Kallidromiou Street. The official city guide calls Kallidromiou the heart of Exarcheia, a street that rises and falls under mulberry trees, and pictures it on a laiki (street market) day; the same guide credits Exarcheia with the city's liveliest farmers' market.
• Lycabettus slopes. Neapoli climbs the slopes of Lycabettus towards Kolonaki; the cable car page notes that the top can also be reached on foot by the trail.

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Exarcheia (1)
• Tavernas in Exarcheia (3)
• Bars in Exarcheia (11)
• Cafes in Exarcheia (4)
• Souvlaki and street food in Exarcheia (2)
• Bakeries in Exarcheia (2)

Best time to go

• Wednesday to Monday mornings: the National Archaeological Museum opens at 08:00 and the Epigraphic Museum at 08:30. Avoid Tuesday mornings: the big museum opens only at 13:00 and the Epigraphic Museum is closed all day.
• Until 15 November 2026 the National Archaeological Museum keeps its summer hours to 20:00; last winter it closed at 15:30 from Wednesday to Monday.
• Wednesday 28 October 2026 (Ohi Day): free entry to the Epigraphic Museum; from November to March also on the first and third Sundays.
• Evenings: the Lycabettus cable car runs until 01:30, though it may stop earlier in winter.
• Around 15 to 17 November the Polytechnic opens for the commemoration, but expect traffic restrictions and heavy policing; in 2025 Omonia, Panepistimio, Syntagma, Evangelismos and Megaro Mousikis metro stations closed after 14:00 on 17 November. The UK FCDO also names 1 May, 17 November and 6 December as dates for political demonstrations.

Practical

• Safety (official advice, dated). The UK FCDO advice for Greece (updated 11 August 2026, still current on 6 October 2026) says demonstrations often take place around major squares in central Athens, names 1 May, 17 November and 6 December as likely dates, notes that some have turned violent and that tear gas is often used, and advises keeping away from protests. It also warns that thefts of passports, wallets and bags are common on the metro and in crowded places in central Athens. The official city guide adds that confrontations with police sometimes break out in Exarcheia without warning (its page is undated).
• Metro works and late returns. STASY's rail replacement on Lines 2 and 3 closed Omonia and Panepistimio at 21:40 on several nights in spring 2026; by 7 August 2026 the work was 98 percent done, with only the Monastiraki to Kerameikos stretch left for September. Check stasy.gr before a late return.
• Accessibility. National Archaeological Museum: separate entrance for visitors with disabilities on Vasileos Irakleiou Street, by ramp or from the pavement, and a lift. Epigraphic Museum: ramp, lift, tactile material and an accessible WC, per the Ministry directory.

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Kolonaki, close up

Kolonaki, literally "little column", is the upmarket neighbourhood on the slopes of Lycabettus, and the official city guide calls it the capital of the city's café culture. It is also one of the richest museum quarters in Athens: around Evangelismos metro station stand the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Byzantine and Christian Museum, the War Museum and the excavated Lyceum where Aristotle taught. Higher up, Dexameni Square sits on the reservoir at the end of Hadrian's aqueduct.

Kolonaki lies in the Municipality of Athens at the foot of Lycabettus hill, between Syntagma and Vasilissis Sofias Avenue. The five sights below sit on or just off Vasilissis Sofias: the Benaki at Koumbari 1, the Cycladic at Neofytou Douka 4, the Byzantine and Christian Museum at Vasilissis Sofias 22, the War Museum at Rizari 2 to 4 and the Lyceum, entered from Pavlou Mela Square.

A little history

Under Ottoman rule the area was largely grazing land, says the official city guide, and many early settlers chose the foot of Lycabettus because it reminded them of their mountain villages. The name means "little column", after the small ancient column in Kolonaki Square; Greek Wikipedia says the column first stood at Dexameni and was moved in 1938, and that the square was first named after Queen Olga before it was renamed for the Filiki Etaireia. Dexameni is far older: it is the reservoir at the end of Hadrian's aqueduct, which Athinorama describes as 20 to 25 kilometres of tunnels begun in the 2nd century AD to bring water from Parnitha and Penteli; Kathimerini notes that work to bring it back into use began in 1847. On Vasilissis Sofias, Villa Ilissia was built in 1848 for the Duchess of Plaisance and has housed the Byzantine and Christian Museum since 1930; the War Museum opened nearby in July 1975, and in 1996 excavations for a new museum uncovered the Lyceum. For the rest of Athens, the city guide says, Kolonaki became the capital of café culture and the symbol of the booming 1980s.

Getting there

Metro Line 3 (blue): Evangelismos is the station for the museums on Vasilissis Sofias: two minutes after Syntagma on the STASY Line 3 timetable, and 38 minutes from the airport. The Ministry of Culture puts the Byzantine and Christian Museum a few metres from the station; the Cycladic Museum gives 500 metres. Lines 2 and 3 run through the night every Saturday (not the airport branch). STASY's notice on the Line 3 night works (from 16 September 2026, Sunday to Thursday) names only Eleonas, Kerameikos and Monastiraki as closing at 21:40.

Metro Lines 2 (red) and 3 (blue), Syntagma: Syntagma station is 600 metres from the Cycladic Museum by the museum's count, and the Benaki lists both Syntagma and Evangelismos. On foot the Cycladic is 10 minutes from Syntagma Square and 3 minutes from Kolonaki Square.

Bus and trolleybus: The Cycladic Museum lists the Rigillis and Byzantine Museum stops, served by trolleybus 3 and buses 203, 211, 214, 220, 221, 224, 235, 608, 622, 815, A5, E14 and X95. The Benaki lists trolleybus 3 and buses 022, 060, 203, 204, 204B, 211, 214, 220, 221, 224, 235, 608, 622, 815, A5, E14, X14 and X95. Check each line on OASA before travelling (not checked on oasa.gr tonight).

See and do

Squares and open spaces

• Kolonaki Square (Filikis Etaireias Square). The heart of the district; the Cycladic Museum gives its official name, Filikis Etairias Square, 3 minutes on foot from the museum. The small ancient column that gave Kolonaki its name stands in the square (Wikipedia). The city guide says the neighbourhood's centre of gravity moved from Agios Dionysios to Kolonaki Square, with cafés on its lower side and along Kapsali Street.
• Dexameni Square. Higher up the slope, named after Hadrian's reservoir. The city guide says it was restored in the mid 1800s, briefly turned into a children's swimming pool between the wars, and is now used once a year for a religious observance. In the 1930s writers such as Kazantzakis, Sikelianos, Papadiamantis and Varnalis met here, and an ouzeri still stands where they met. Kathimerini describes Sunday mornings when the café's green chairs fill from about 10:00.
• Byzantine and Christian Museum gardens. Visit Greece describes the museum gardens as a green oasis with fruit trees and water features, three outdoor exhibitions (the Well Cistern on the history of water supply, Paradise on Byzantine beliefs about the afterlife, and Ilissos on the river's landscape) and a café bistro beside the historic building.
• Lykeion archaeological site. Hellenic Heritage calls Aristotle's Lyceum an oasis hidden in the heart of Athens; it is an open air site with the same hours as above.

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Kolonaki (3)
• Tavernas in Kolonaki (1)
• Bars in Kolonaki (1)
• Cafes in Kolonaki (2)
• Souvlaki and street food in Kolonaki (2)
• Bakeries in Kolonaki (5)

Best time to go

• Thursday evening: the Benaki's permanent exhibition is free from 18:00 and the building is open to midnight; the Cycladic stays open to 20:00 that day.
• Avoid Tuesday for museums: the Benaki, the Cycladic and the Byzantine Museum are all closed. The Lyceum is open daily and the War Museum every day except a few holidays.
• From 1 November the Lyceum closes at 15:00 and the War Museum at 17:00 (22:00 on Saturdays): go in the morning.
• Sunday morning at Dexameni, when the square's café fills from about 10:00.

Practical

• Accessibility. Cycladic: step free entrance at Neofytou Douka 4. Benaki: wheelchair entrance on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue. Byzantine Museum: permanent exhibition accessible, tactile route, one parking space for people with disabilities. Lyceum: wheelchair access through the main entrance, a companion recommended.
• Free days at the state sites. The Byzantine Museum and the Lyceum are free on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September and 28 October.
• Pets. At the Benaki, pets on a lead may enter the shops and courtyards, not the galleries or cafés; guide and assistance dogs everywhere. At the War Museum only guide dogs.
• On foot. Kolonaki is uphill from Syntagma: the Cycladic gives 10 minutes on foot from Syntagma Square.

Google Maps Review this place

Koukaki and Makrigianni, close up

Koukaki is named after a person, not a monument. Around 1900, when the area was still mostly fields with hardly any houses, a bed manufacturer called Koukakis built his home at what is now the corner of Dimitrakopoulou and Georgaki Olympiou streets. It was almost the only building around, so people would simply say they were "at Koukakis's", and the name stuck.

The details vary from source to source. Mixanitouxronou and Greece Is call him Georgios Koukakis, while Womantoc and ProtoThema call him Dimitrios; Mixanitouxronou and Womantoc date his house to around 1900, Greece Is to the early 1920s. Womantoc gives his bed factory address as Kolokotroni 88, whereas Greek Wikipedia says the big Koukakis bed workshop stood on Syngrou Avenue near the old Fix site before the war. ProtoThema points to the striped apartment block on that corner as the spot where he lived.

Makrigianni takes its name from General Ioannis Makrygiannis, a hero of the Greek War of Independence, who owned a house and fields here. Mixanitouxronou adds that the general's estate lay to the northeast of early Koukaki.

Where it starts and stops: Greek Wikipedia draws Koukaki between the ring road of Filopappou Hill and Dionysiou Areopagitou to the north, Roumelis Street (the line with Ano Petralona) to the west, and Syngrou Avenue to the south and east, where Kallithea and Neos Kosmos begin. It notes that the smaller districts of Akropoli and Makrigianni are often counted as part of Koukaki.

ProtoThema draws the lines a little differently: Syngrou Avenue to the east, Filopappou Hill to the west, Lagoumitzi Street to the south and Jean Moreas and Panaitoliou streets to the north, with Veikou, Dimitrakopoulou, Olympiou and Falirou as the core. It admits the edges are fuzzy and that many people fold Gargaretta and Makrigianni into Koukaki, while one longtime local tells the paper he lives in Makrigianni, not Koukaki.

Makrigianni, also simply called Akropoli, sits on the south side of the Acropolis between Dionysiou Areopagitou and Syngrou Avenue. The Greek tourism text on STASY's Akropoli station page describes it as a residential area running from Dionysiou Areopagitou to the foot of Filopappou Hill and calls it one of the city's most elegant neighbourhoods.

The official city guide sees Koukaki as a place of contrasts, wedged between the Acropolis and the roar of Syngrou Avenue, where culture, green corners and good architecture serve locals and visitors alike.

The upper streets near Filopappou Hill stay low and neoclassical while the blocks towards Syngrou grow denser, a local architect told ProtoThema, and evenings gather on the Georgaki Olympiou pedestrian street, which Athens Voice calls the best known street in Koukaki.

The flip side, reported by Kathimerini's English edition in July 2026, is that the area now draws young tourists and digital nomads, and most residents it spoke to blamed short term rentals for rising rents.

A little history

The oldest big landmark is the Weiler building on Makrigianni Street, designed and built in 1836 by the Bavarian military engineer Wilhelm von Weiler as the army hospital. Police units used it as barracks from 1920, it was at the heart of the fighting of December 1944, it passed to the Ministry of Culture in 1978 and, after works from 1985 to 1987, it now houses the Museum of the Centre for Acropolis Studies.

The first slice of the area, around Dionysiou Areopagitou and Makrigianni, entered the official city plan in 1897; the rest followed in the 1930s, pushed by fast urban growth and the arrival of refugees from Asia Minor. Building began in earnest in the early 20th century in a late neoclassical style.

From the 1950s to the late 1980s Koukaki was a working class, semi industrial district of workshops, body shops and carpentries, and a building boom in the 1960s and 1970s gave it its six storey apartment blocks; Greek Wikipedia calls it densely built and already saturated by then. From 2000 the metro, pedestrian schemes and, from around 2015, short term rentals reshaped it, and in 2016 Airbnb named Koukaki among its 16 neighbourhoods to travel to that year.

The old museum on the Rock kept running out of room, so the idea of a new Acropolis Museum away from the Rock took hold. An architectural competition in 2000 chose Bernard Tschumi and his Greek collaborator Michael Photiades; the building rose about 300 metres from the monuments over an excavated ancient neighbourhood, its foundations were finished on 30 January 2004 and it opened on 20 June 2009.

Dionysiou Areopagitou was one of the noisiest, busiest streets in the city until a traffic ban in 2003 turned it into a promenade linking Hadrian's Arch with Filopappou Hill. It is part of a pedestrian route of about 3 kilometres that ties together the main archaeological sites of central Athens, and the official city guide credits it and the museum with making the area one of the most fashionable in Athens.

Getting there

Metro Line 2 (the red line) has two stops here: Akropoli, the Acropolis Museum's nearest station, in Makrigianni, and Syngrou Fix, which Greek Wikipedia names as Koukaki's station. On STASY's timetable Akropoli is about 2 minutes from Syntagma, and Syngrou Fix is 1 minute further on towards Elliniko.

Akropoli station has two street exits, both on Makrigianni Street: one at the corner with Dionysiou Areopagitou and one at the corner with Athanasiou Diakou.

Train times at Akropoli on STASY's Line 2 timetable: first trains at about 05:37 to 05:39 on weekdays, a little later on Sundays; last trains around 00:18 towards Anthoupoli and 00:24 towards Elliniko from Sunday to Thursday, and about 01:55 and 02:01 on Fridays. Line 2 runs all night every Saturday. STASY's own station page gives earlier late night times (01:25 and 01:31 on Friday and Saturday nights), so the two official pages disagree; check before a late trip.

By tram: Line 6 (Syntagma to Pikrodafni) stops at L. Vouliagmenis about 5 minutes from Syntagma and at Fix about 7 minutes from Syntagma, per STASY's tram timetable. The Acropolis Museum names Leoforos Vouliagmenis as its nearest tram stop, and EMST says it is 300 metres from the Fix tram stop.

By bus or trolley: the Acropolis Museum lists the Makrigianni stop, served by trolley lines 1, 5 and 15 and by many bus routes, among them 230, A2, A3, A4, B2, B3 and B4.

On foot: the Ministry of Culture gives two walking routes from Akropoli station to the Acropolis, either along Dionysiou Areopagitou, or through the South Slope site via Dionysiou Areopagitou and Thrasyllou Street, without walking times. Greeka puts the Church of Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris about a 12 minute walk from Akropoli station, and EMST says it is 280 metres from Syngrou Fix station.

By bike: there are bike racks at the museum's main entrance on Dionysiou Areopagitou and at the entrance of Akropoli station.

By car: STASY runs a 642 space underground car park at Syngrou Fix, open around the clock and linked to the metro station by an underground passage.

See and do

Squares and open spaces

• Filopappou Hill. The Hill of the Muses is one of three wooded hills facing the Acropolis, together about 180 acres, says the official city guide; LiFO describes groups of friends settling here in the late afternoon, beer in hand, to watch the sun go down.
• Drakou pedestrian street. Next to Syngrou Fix, the metro and tram hub turned the cafés of pedestrianised Drakou Street into one of the liveliest bar scenes in Athens, according to the official city guide, with students from nearby Panteion University adding to the young crowd.
• Georgaki Olympiou pedestrian street (also written Georgiou Olympiou). Athens Voice calls it the best known street in Koukaki, packed with meze places, kafeneia and restaurants that make it feel like one big neighbourhood; the same article describes a yearly carnival street party here on the first Saturday after Tsiknopempti, run by local shopkeepers with the City of Athens.
• Koukaki lemon grove, Kallirrois Avenue. On the side road of Kallirrois Avenue at Nos 128 to 130, the City of Athens planted 50 lemon trees for World Environment Day, making a green spot of about 2,500 square metres (2.5 stremmata) with four benches. The City calls it the first municipal single variety lemon garden in Athens; it opened on Thursday 4 June, and the release does not show the year.

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Koukaki (13)
• Restaurants in Makrygianni (1)
• Tavernas in Koukaki (2)
• Tavernas in Makrygianni (1)
• Bars in Koukaki (3)
• Cafes in Koukaki (13)
• Souvlaki and street food in Koukaki (3)
• Bakeries in Koukaki (6)

Best time to go

• Winter Sundays: the Ministry of Culture's general rule makes state run sites, monuments and museums free for everyone on the first and third Sunday of each month from 1 November to 31 March. For winter 2026 to 2027 that means 1 and 15 November, 6 and 20 December, 3 and 17 January, 7 and 21 February, and 7 and 21 March (our dates, worked out from the rule). The Ministry's own Acropolis page, however, lists only five fixed free days and no winter Sundays, so the two official pages disagree; check hhticket.gr before counting on a free Acropolis visit.
• The Acropolis Museum sets its own free days, and winter Sundays are not among them: 6 March, 25 March, 18 May and 28 October. Wednesday 28 October 2026 is free at the museum and at Ministry sites, but EMST is closed that day.
• Crowds: the Acropolis Museum itself warns of high traffic on peak days and hours, when even booked groups may have to wait. In winter its Friday late opening, until 22:00, gives you an evening option.
• At the Acropolis, last entry is 30 minutes before closing (16:30 in winter), so aim to be inside well before then.
• For the view without the sunset crowd, the official city guide suggests the Areopagus rock at sunrise; LiFO describes locals gathering on Filopappou Hill in the late afternoon to watch the sunset.

Practical

• Acropolis Museum tickets: general tickets sell at the desk or online; reduced and free tickets are issued only at the museum ticket desk with documents.
• You can use the museum's ground floor shop and café without a ticket; the second floor restaurant needs a free pass from the ticket desk and stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.
• Inside the museum, no photos or video in the Archaic Acropolis Gallery, no food or drink in the galleries, and large bags go to the cloakroom.
• On the Acropolis, food and drink are not allowed, shoes suitable for walking are recommended, and the cloakroom will not take large luggage, though small backpacks and handbags can go in with you.
• Step free access: the Acropolis lift is reached from a separate entrance north of the main entrance on the west slope, along a 350 metre path, and ticket checks for visitors with disabilities happen only at the main entrance, not the south one. The Ministry asks you to phone the guards' office on 2131317762 an hour before arriving; the lift does not run in bad weather or strong wind. The Acropolis Museum has ramps at all entrances, lifts to every floor and wheelchairs on loan.
• At Ministry sites, EU citizens over 65 pay about half price from 1 October to 31 May; EU visitors up to 25 and non EU children up to 18 go free with ID.
• The Lalaounis museum is closed on Sundays and national holidays, and its concession tickets are sold only at the museum cashier.
• The Western Hills, including Filopappou, can close on days of high fire risk; the Ministry posted such a closure in August 2021.

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Mets, close up

Mets is a small, hilly neighbourhood of Athens on Longinou hill, the southern continuation of Ardittos Hill, across from and southeast of the Zappeion. It stretches from the west slope of Ardittos in front of the First Cemetery entrance down to the stretch of the Ilissos riverbed that survives by the church of Agia Fotini, and small neoclassical houses cover its slopes (Greek Wikipedia, read 8 Oct 2026). Quiet lanes, neoclassical houses and green corners give it a rhythm of its own, and Anapafseos Street, named because it leads to the First Cemetery, has become a favourite street for going out (Cookout, 9 Sep 2026). Loved by artists and writers, Mets is often called the Montmartre of Athens (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020).

Where the name comes from

• Mets takes its name from a beer house called Mets that a member of the Fix brewing family, of Bavarian origin, opened on the slopes of Ardittos Hill (News 24/7, 6 Jun 2018; Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020; Mixani tou Chronou, undated; all read 8 Oct 2026)
• The beer house was named after the French city of Metz, in memory of the battle fought there in the Franco Prussian War (News 24/7, 6 Jun 2018; Mixani tou Chronou, undated; Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020; all read 8 Oct 2026)
• The sources differ on who opened it and when: News 24/7 says Johann Fix in 1870; Kathimerini says Karolos Fix, son of the brewery founder Johann Fix, in 1872; Mixani tou Chronou says Karolos Fix; Parapolitika speaks only of a Bavarian businessman around 1870 (News 24/7, 6 Jun 2018; Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020; Mixani tou Chronou, undated; Parapolitika, 17 May 2026; all read 8 Oct 2026)
• Later the beer house became a cafe aman, with santouri, violins, guitars and double basses, but its name stayed with the neighbourhood (News 24/7, 6 Jun 2018; Greek Wikipedia; both read 8 Oct 2026)
• Before the name Mets, the riverside area was nicknamed Pantremenadika, because married people met their lovers in the small cafes on the shady banks of the Ilissos (News 24/7, 6 Jun 2018; Greek Wikipedia; both read 8 Oct 2026). Kathimerini instead links the nickname to wooden shacks built there in the early 20th century and used for secret meetings (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020, read 8 Oct 2026)
• Greek Wikipedia also quotes an undated notice about an annex of N. Th. Tsouchlos's hotel trading as 'Mets and Panteptis'; it gives no date or specific source, so treat it as unconfirmed (Greek Wikipedia, read 8 Oct 2026)

Where it starts and stops

Greek Wikipedia gives notional limits: Ardittou Avenue to the north, Ilioupoleos Avenue to the west, Nikiforou Theotoki Street to the east and Trivonianou Street to the south. It cites a City of Athens neighbourhood limits list on gov.gr (archived 14 Aug 2020), which we did not open, so treat these limits as approximate (Greek Wikipedia, read 8 Oct 2026). Kathimerini reports that, according to the City of Athens town planning department, Archimidous Street, behind the Stadium, divides the wider Mets district into two neighbourhoods, Varnava and Mets (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020, read 8 Oct 2026).

Getting there

• Metro: the Panathenaic Stadium is about 1,000 m from Akropoli, Syntagma and Evangelismos stations, on lines M2 and M3 (Panathenaic Stadium, Visit, read 8 Oct 2026). Greek Wikipedia names Akropoli as the metro station serving Mets (read 8 Oct 2026).
• Walking time: Hellenic Heritage gives a 7 minute walk from Akropoli station (Line 2) to the Olympieion (Hellenic Heritage, Olympieion, read 8 Oct 2026). No official walking time from any station to Mets itself was found.
• Tram: line 6 (Syntagma to Pikrodafni) stops at Zappio, 2 minutes from Syntagma (STASY tram timetable, read 8 Oct 2026). The Stadium's own page also names tram line 6, stop Zappeio (Panathenaic Stadium, Visit, read 8 Oct 2026).
• The Syntagma bound Zappeio tram platform was due to reopen on Friday 15 May 2026 at a new spot on Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, with full service again on line 6 (iefimerida, 14 May 2026, citing STASY, read 8 Oct 2026).
• For the Olympieion, Hellenic Heritage suggests the next tram stop on line 6, Leoforos Vouliagmenis, listed by STASY as L. Vouliagmenis, 5 minutes from Syntagma (Hellenic Heritage, Olympieion; STASY; both read 8 Oct 2026).
• Do not mix up the Agia Fotini stop in Mets with line 6's Aghia Fotini tram stop, which STASY places 17 minutes from Syntagma, well beyond Zappio (STASY, read 8 Oct 2026).
• Tram times on line 6: first tram from Syntagma 05:30, last 00:50 (01:40 on Fridays); STASY runs a 24 hour service every Saturday (STASY tram timetable, read 8 Oct 2026).
• Bus and trolleybus: the Stadium page lists bus routes 2, 4, 10, 11, 90, 209 and 550 and trolley lines 2, 4, 10 and 11, all at the Stadium stop (Panathenaic Stadium, Visit, read 8 Oct 2026). Greek Wikipedia names trolley lines 2, 4 and 11 and the stops Agia Fotini, Kolymvitirio and Stadio for Mets (read 8 Oct 2026).
• For the Olympieion, Hellenic Heritage lists buses 040, 230 and A2 and trolleybuses 1, 2, 4, 5, 11 and 15 (Hellenic Heritage, Olympieion, read 8 Oct 2026).
• Bicycle: there is bicycle parking at the Stadium entrance (Panathenaic Stadium, Visit, read 8 Oct 2026).

See and do

Squares and open spaces

• Anapafseos Street: tables for coffee, food and drinks from early morning until late at night, with a postcard view of the Acropolis (Cantina, 29 Mar 2024; Cookout, 9 Sep 2026; both read 8 Oct 2026)
• Ardittos Hill: a view of the Acropolis and Plaka from the top; locals enter through an opening in the fence at the end of the Kleitomachou Street steps (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020, read 8 Oct 2026)
• Longinou grove and park, with a children's playground (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020; Greek Wikipedia; both read 8 Oct 2026)
• Pedestrian streets: Nikiforou Theotoki, where Kathimerini's walker found a TV crew filming among its pretty houses, and Longinou, which leads to the First Cemetery (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020, read 8 Oct 2026)
• Streets for a stroll: Markou Mousourou, Miniati, Fotiadou and Sorvolou, with a neoclassical house with a sun terrace at Aristonikou 7 and a pink mansion at the corner of Sorvolou and Miniati (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020, read 8 Oct 2026)
• Archimidous Street, behind the Stadium, hosted a street market on Fridays when Kathimerini walked it (Kathimerini, 19 Dec 2020, read 8 Oct 2026)
• The National Garden and Zappeion gardens, open daily from sunrise to sunset (green athens.gr, read 8 Oct 2026)
• The Ilissos riverbed by Agia Fotini, a stretch of the river that survives today (Greek Wikipedia, read 8 Oct 2026)

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Mets (3)
• Tavernas in Mets (1)
• Bars in Mets (5)
• Cafes in Mets (4)

Next door: the Koukaki and Makrigianni close up covers the streets on the other side of the Acropolis Museum.

Best time to go

Visit the Stadium in the morning or late afternoon in summer, as its own page advises, and bring water and sun protection; in winter mind the steps, which can be slippery (Panathenaic Stadium, Visit, read 8 Oct 2026). From 1 November the Olympieion closes at 15:00 (last entry 14:40) and the Stadium at 17:00, so plan sightseeing for the morning. Anapafseos Street is busy from morning coffee until late at night (Cantina, 29 Mar 2024, read 8 Oct 2026).

Google Maps Review this place

Plaka and Anafiotika, close up

Plaka is the old quarter of Athens that wraps around the north and east slopes of the Acropolis, built over homes of the ancient city and long nicknamed the Neighbourhood of the Gods (Wikipedia, background only, read 9 Oct 2026). The City of Athens visitor guide describes it hugging the foot of the rock from Filomousou Square, near where Kydathineon meets Adrianou, down to Monastiraki, a tangle of lanes with neoclassical houses, Byzantine churches, cafes and souvenir shops (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026). Anafiotika is the tiny cluster of whitewashed houses at the highest point of Plaka, right under the rock, founded by workmen from the Aegean island of Anafi, so its lanes feel like an island village (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026) (Wikipedia, background only, read 9 Oct 2026). The official guide also points visitors to small museums such as the Museum of Greek Folk Art and the folk instruments museum, and warns that the area draws big crowds (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026).

Where the names come from

• The place name Plaka first turns up in the second half of the 17th century; until King Otto's time it meant only the area around the Lysicrates monument, and after 1834 it slowly spread to the whole quarter between Makrygianni Street and the Ancient Agora (Wikipedia, background only, read 9 Oct 2026).
• The Athenian chronicler Kambouroglou tied the name to a large marble slab (plaka in Greek) found near the small church of Agios Georgios of Alexandria on the eastern slope of the Acropolis, close to Thespidos Street, though he said nothing about the slab itself (Exploring Greece TV, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Dimitrios Sisilianos, in his book Old and New Athens, doubted the slab story and preferred an Albanian root, pliaka, meaning old: Albanian speakers around Athens called the quarter Pliaka Athens, old Athens, which became Plaka in Greek (Exploring Greece TV, read 9 Oct 2026).
• The architect Kostas Biris, who wrote widely on Athens place names, also saw an Albanian origin, brought by Albanian mercenaries whom the Ottomans housed around the Lysicrates monument after the failed Orlov revolt of 1770; the same source stresses that the true origin is still debated (Exploring Greece TV, read 9 Oct 2026).
• The linguist Charalampos Symeonides (2010) treats Plaka as an ordinary Greek place name found across the country and recorded as early as 1089, which in Athens marked a spot with ancient slabs or marbles (Wikipedia, background only, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Anafiotika is named after Anafi: the official city guide says the quarter was founded by workmen from that island, drawn by familiar rocky ground and cheap land (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026), and Wikipedia adds that the settlers from Anafi built it during King Otto's reign (Wikipedia, background only, read 9 Oct 2026).

Where it starts and stops

This is Athens, the official City of Athens guide, is the source used here: it puts Plaka at the base of the Acropolis, stretching from Filomousou Square, roughly where Kydathineon and Adrianou Streets cross, down to Monastiraki, and it marks the loose edges of Anafiotika with two 17th century churches, Agios Georgios tou Vrachou (St George of the Rock) to the east and Agios Simeon to the west (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026). For background only, Wikipedia places Plaka on the northeast slope of the Acropolis between Syntagma and Monastiraki squares, with Adrianou Street dividing upper Plaka (Ano Plaka) right under the rock from lower Plaka (Kato Plaka) towards Syntagma and Monastiraki (Wikipedia, background only, read 9 Oct 2026).

Getting there

• Monastiraki station is on Lines 1 and 3 and has an exit on Monastiraki Square (STASY, Athens metro operator, read 9 Oct 2026); the Ministry's visitor site puts both the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library about 2 minutes on foot from the station (Hellenic Heritage, hh.gr, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Syntagma station is on Lines 2 and 3, with tram connections (T6 to Pikrodafni, and T6 with T7 beyond) (STASY, Athens metro operator, read 9 Oct 2026); from the square the Jewish Museum's directions follow Mitropoleos Street and then Nikis Street, about 3 minutes to number 39 (Jewish Museum of Greece official site, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Akropoli station is on Line 2, with exits at Makrygianni and Dionysiou Areopagitou and at Makrygianni and Athanasiou Diakou (STASY, Athens metro operator, read 9 Oct 2026); the Canellopoulos Museum suggests the Dionysiou Areopagitou exit and a short walk up Theorias Street to its door at the corner of Theorias and Panos (Canellopoulos Museum official site, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Buses and trolleys: the Ministry's visitor pages for the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library list bus lines 025 and 026 to the Monastiraki stop (Hellenic Heritage, hh.gr, read 9 Oct 2026); the Jewish Museum says bus and trolley lines stopping at Syntagma or on Filellinon serve its end of Plaka, and from the Russian Church stop you turn into pedestrian Kydathineon, but it gives no line numbers (Jewish Museum of Greece official site, read 9 Oct 2026).
• On foot: the Jewish Museum calls Adrianou one of Plaka's busiest tourist streets and reckons about 4 minutes from Adrianou along Kydathineon, with your back to the Acropolis, to Nikis Street (Jewish Museum of Greece official site, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Taxis: licensed Athens taxis run on meters that charge by distance and time, so check the meter is on; they must take cards (a sticker on the rear right window says so), though it is worth asking first; yellow taxis can also be called through Free Now or UberTaxi, or booked from radio taxi firms (This is Athens, taxis page, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Metro access for wheelchair users: every station is accessible, with adapted toilets that staff unlock; board at the first or last car on Lines 2 and 3 and at the first door of the first car on Line 1; at Monastiraki on Line 1 the gap to the train is wide, so ask for a ramp; the helpline +30 210 8200887 runs 06:30 to 22:30 on weekdays and 07:30 to 22:30 at weekends (This is Athens, Accessible Athens, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Steps and slopes: lower Plaka along Adrianou and Kydathineon is fairly flat, upper Plaka climbs on steep cobbled lanes with stone stairs, and Anafiotika is reached only by stone steps, so it is not wheelchair accessible; taxis cannot drive into the narrow pedestrian lanes (Wheelie Guides, independent accessibility guide, not official, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Access at the ancient sites: Hadrian's Library has a beaten earth path for wheelchairs and pushchairs from the Dexippos Street entrance towards the east side, plus accessible toilets, but the west facade is off limits to wheelchair users for now; the Roman Agora is only partly accessible (Ministry of Culture, Odysseus, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Access at the museums: the Museum of Modern Greek Culture at Areos 10 is fully accessible, the Bath House of the Winds partly, and the Tzisdarakis Mosque and Panos 22 not at all (Ministry of Culture, Odysseus, read 9 Oct 2026).

See and do

Squares, steps and viewpoints

• Plateia Filomousou Eterias (Filomousou Square), Plaka side: roughly where Kydathineon and Adrianou meet, it is where the official guide starts its Plaka, which then runs down to Monastiraki (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Lysikratous square, Plaka side: the Lysicrates monument sits in an excavated square right under the Acropolis cliff, set almost at right angles to Hadrian's Arch, and its shaded cafes are a favourite meeting point (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Anafiotika steps and lanes, Plaka side: the road narrows into a path with a sign pointing to the Acropolis by way of Theorias; walk back towards Agios Georgios for a view out to Lycabettus (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Theorias, Plaka side: a stone paved walk around the Acropolis that you reach from the Anafiotika paths (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026); from Dionysiou Areopagitou a short climb up Theorias Street brings you to the corner of Theorias and Panos (Canellopoulos Museum official site, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Dionysiou Areopagitou, Makrygianni side, not Plaka: STASY counts Makrygianni as running from this street to the foot of Philopappou; the street looks onto the south slope of the Acropolis and is part of a 3 km pedestrian route with Vasilissis Olgas, Apostolou Pavlou, Adrianou and part of Ermou (STASY, Athens metro operator, read 9 Oct 2026), with paths laid by Dimitris Pikionis in the 1960s (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026).
• The steps of Epicharmou, Plaka side: at the corner with Prytaneiou Street they rise past the small Byzantine church of Agios Nikolaos Rangavas with the Acropolis behind (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026).
• Mitropoleos Square, Historic Centre side: the cathedral square where the Little Metropolis stands beside the big Metropolitan church (Athens Attica visitor site, read 9 Oct 2026); the official guide files the church under the Historic Centre, not Plaka (This is Athens, churches guide, read 9 Oct 2026).

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Plaka (5)
• Restaurants in Monastiraki (4)
• Tavernas in Plaka (2)
• Bars in Monastiraki (6)
• Cafes in Plaka (4)
• Cafes in Monastiraki (2)
• Souvlaki and street food in Monastiraki (2)
• Bakeries in Plaka (1)
• Bakeries in Monastiraki (2)

Next door: the Koukaki and Makrigianni close up covers the streets south of the Acropolis.

Best time to go

The official city guide warns that Plaka draws crowds (This is Athens, City of Athens official guide, read 9 Oct 2026), and Matt Barrett writes that in summer the streets are jammed by nine o'clock, while in winter, with few tourists about, the old basement cod tavernas on Kydathineon open (Matt Barrett, greektravel.com, read 9 Oct 2026). Rick Steves notes that cruise passengers swarm the Acropolis above until about 5 pm, so he goes up late in the day, and, writing about Europe in general, he recommends the November to March off season to avoid peak crowds (Rick Steves, read 9 Oct 2026). Heat can shut sites: the Ministry closed Hadrian's Library from 12:00 to 17:00 on 25 to 27 July 2025 because of high temperatures (Ministry of Culture, Odysseus, read 9 Oct 2026). From 1 November the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library close at 15:00, so winter visits need an early start (Ministry of Culture, Odysseus, read 9 Oct 2026) (Hellenic Heritage, hh.gr, read 9 Oct 2026); no source read today named a best hour for evening light.

Google Maps Review this place

Kypseli, close up

North of Pedion tou Areos, Kypseli was the smart address of 1950s Athens and is now one of its most mixed and lived in neighbourhoods: Bauhaus and Art Deco apartment blocks, a long pedestrian boulevard over a buried stream, a restored 1930s market and a cluster of small theatres. Everything below comes from the pages named in the sources, read on 10 Oct 2026.

A little history

• About a hundred years ago this was countryside of vineyards and pastures some two kilometres from the capital, with a few mansions and farmhouses and two streams marking its edges (This is Athens).
• In 1908 the county engineer Athanasios Georgiadis set its limits and planned it; until then it was a rural area of estates and country houses (Wikipedia).
• Konstantinos Kanaris, a hero of the Greek War of Independence and later prime minister, lived and died in a country house here; his statue stands in Kypseli Square (Wikipedia).
• Building began in earnest in the 1930s: the streams were covered over and the first apartment blocks went up in the Bauhaus and Art Deco styles of the day (This is Athens).
• By the 1950s it was one of the smartest neighbourhoods in Athens and drew artists and intellectuals; from the 1990s, as wealthier families moved to the suburbs, newcomers from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia settled here for the lower rents (This is Athens).

What it feels like

• Roughly 50,000 people live here, and it is one of the most multicultural neighbourhoods of the city (This is Athens).
• It is a theatre district too: more than 14 small independent theatres, and actors and directors often meet on Agios Georgios (St George) Square after the show (This is Athens).

Where it starts and stops

Pedion tou Areos, the second largest public park in Athens, marks its southern edge (This is Athens). Patission Street on the west, the Tourkovounia hills on the east and Galatsi to the north are often given as the other edges, but we could not confirm them on a page we trust (see below).

Fokionos Negri

• The pedestrian boulevard at the heart of Kypseli runs over a former stream; its promenade of lawns and open spaces is about 600 metres long (This is Athens).
• It runs from Kypseli Square to Ioannou Drosopoulou Street and carries on as a road to the old Levidou tram stop at Patision and Agiou Meletiou; it took shape in the 1930s on the line of a stream that came down from Tourkovounia and was made pedestrian under mayor Beis in the 1970s (Greek Wikipedia, Odos Fokionos Negri).
• It is named after Fokion Negris (1846 to 1928), an Athenian politician and scholar who was president of the Academy of Athens just after its founding in 1926 (Greek Wikipedia).
• In the 1950s and 1960s it was one of the most fashionable addresses in the city, nicknamed the Via Veneto of Athens; the Select patisserie on the corner of Eptanisou, famous for its Chicago ice cream, still works as a cafe (Greek Wikipedia).
• Look for the Lanara apartment building at Fokionos Negri 23 (1938, by the engineer I. Zolotas), the bronze Kori se Ekstasi (1939) by Michalis Tombros, a bronze bust of mayor Kostas Kotzias (1967) by Loukia Georganti, and a dog statue from the 1940s (Greek Wikipedia; This is Athens).

See and do

Squares and viewpoints

• Plateia Protomagias (1 May Square), fronted by the nineteenth century facade of the former Military School, is in fact the roof of a tunnel that links Kypseli to Alexandras Avenue, and it gives a rare open view of Lycabettus (This is Athens).
• Kypseli Square at the top of Fokionos Negri, with the statue of Konstantinos Kanaris (Wikipedia).
• Agios Georgios (St George) Square, where the theatre crowd gathers after performances (This is Athens).

Getting there

• The nearest station is Victoria, a few minutes' walk south along Patission Avenue (This is Athens).
• From Kypseli Square, at the top of Fokionos Negri, trolleybuses and buses run back to Victoria and Syntagma (This is Athens); check the line numbers on OASA before you go.
• Athens Metro Line 4 is planned to stop here, with Kypseli Square named as the future Kypseli station (Wikipedia; not yet checked with Attiko Metro).

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Kypseli (5)
• Tavernas in Kypseli (6)
• Bars in Kypseli (4)
• Cafes in Kypseli (6)
• Souvlaki and street food in Kypseli (3)
• Bakeries in Kypseli (2)

Just off Fokionos Negri, Remali Athens at I. Drosopoulou 73 and 75, an all day cafe and bar with its own bakery, is on our Cafes page.

Google Maps Review this place

Psyrri, close up

Between Monastiraki, Athinas Street and Kerameikos, Psyrri is one of the oldest quarters of the city: narrow streets, small squares, workshops and street art, and some of the busiest tavernas and bars in the centre. Everything below comes from the pages named in brackets and in the sources, read on 10 Oct 2026.

A little history

• Psyrri is one of the oldest quarters of Athens. It first turns up in writing in 1678, in the travel book of the French doctor Jacob Spon, who lists it among the eight districts of the town (Greek Wikipedia).
• Nobody is quite sure where the name comes from. The most likely story is that Psyrris meant a man from the island of Psara, which was once known as Psyra (Greek Wikipedia).
• In Ottoman times the quarter was far bigger, taking in today's Monastiraki and reaching Thiseio and the edge of Plaka. Ermou street, cut through in 1835 under the 1833 town plan of the architects Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert, sliced off the southern part, which in time came to count as a district of its own (Greek Wikipedia).
• During Ottoman rule Lord Byron lodged in Psyrri at the home of Theodoros Makris, the British vice consul, and there he met and fell for Teresa Makri (Greek Wikipedia).
• The archaeologist Kyriakos Pittakis, later famous for his excavations on the Acropolis, had a mansion here in Ottoman times, and after independence well off families moved in, among them that of Ioannis Karatzas, a former ruling prince of Wallachia (Greek Wikipedia).
• The writer Alexandros Papadiamantis, the quarter's most famous resident, lived in Psyrri for over twenty years, which earned him the nickname the Hermit of Psyrri (Greek Wikipedia).
• From around 1870 Psyrri ranked among the most dangerous parts of Athens because of the koutsavakides, swaggering local toughs who lived outside the law and robbed, and sometimes killed, traders (Greek Wikipedia).
• Their run ended suddenly in December 1893, when Dimitrios Bairaktaris, police director for Athens and Piraeus, rounded up the area's gangsters within a single month (Greek Wikipedia).
• At Easter 1847 local people wrecked the house of David Pacifico, a British subject, after he slighted the custom of the Good Friday procession followed by the burning of a straw Judas; the damage set off a diplomatic row that Greeks remember as the Parkerika (Greek Wikipedia).
• Psyrri had a poor reputation until the early 1990s; since then it has turned into one of the most fashionable parts of central Athens for staying, going out and eating (Wikipedia).
• In the early 2000s bars and restaurants took over from most of the old craft workshops. Lately craftspeople have been coming back, now making leather sandals and offbeat gifts where wicker chairs and tin goods were once made, and murals have brought many derelict buildings back to life (This is Athens).
• A century ago Psyrri had a sizeable Jewish community. Its two synagogues survive just across Ermou on Melidoni street: number 8 is the older Romaniote house of prayer, known as Ioanniotiki because its community came from Ioannina, and number 5 is a marble faced building of the 1930s, refurbished in 1970 (This is Athens).
• After liberation in 1833 many veterans of the war and newcomers from the provinces settled in Psyrri and ran small workshops, a character the area still partly keeps. A series of works in the early 1990s made it one of the most popular districts both for going out and for living (STASY).

What it feels like

• For the architect Sotiris Hainis, a resident since 2003, Psyrri works like a village in the heart of Athens, where neighbours say hello and craftsmen, antique dealers and family businesses handed down through the generations hold on (This is Athens).
• In his view the daytime belongs to the designers and makers turning Psyrri into the craft hub of central Athens, while evenings bring a crowd of visitors and stylish Athenians; he sees the area as chaotic and full of life, all of Athens in miniature within a handful of blocks (This is Athens).
• Psyrri is at its best after dark: as the second hand dealers pull down their shutters, bar stools spill out into the narrow lanes (This is Athens).
• The old kafeneia and tavernas around Iroon Square once served everyone from royalty and writers to labourers, refugees from Asia Minor and petty gangsters. Today hip bars, student cafes and craft shops crowd the lanes, yet the square still feels more like old Athens than tourist heavy Plaka does (This is Athens).

Where it starts and stops

• Psyrri is almost square: Ermou street marks its southern edge, Athinas street the eastern one, Evripidou street the north, and Sachtouri and Sarri streets the west. It sits just northwest of Monastiraki Square (Greek Wikipedia).
• Monastiraki Square lies right across from the southeast corner, where Athinas meets Ermou; Agion Asomaton Square and Thiseio are at the southwest corner; the Varvakeios central market is near the northeast corner, and Koumoundourou Square is a short walk from Sarri street (Greek Wikipedia).

Places to see

• The church of Agioi Anargyroi stands at Agion Anargyron 19, on the block framed by Taki, Riga Palamidi and Katsikogianni streets. It began in the 11th century as a cross shaped church with a double shelled dome, and was enlarged in 1908, which changed its look a great deal (iaath.gr).
• Tradition says ammunition was stored in the church's crypts during the 1821 revolution and that fighters met here. Panagiotis Ktenas, garrison commander of the Acropolis, who died on 10 June 1822, was buried in the church (iaath.gr).
• By pious tradition Saint Nektarios served at Agioi Anargyroi as a deacon from 1882 to 1885. The writers Alexandros Papadiamantis and Alexandros Moraitidis worshipped here regularly and at times sang as chanters (iaath.gr).
• A modest two storey neoclassical building in Psyrri holds the library of the Archdiocese of Athens, some 15,000 books, and hides a surprise: at the end of the main corridor a dimly lit dome opens onto the remains of the Byzantine church of Agia Eleousa below (This is Athens).
• Agia Eleousa was once owned by the British consul, father of the girl Byron called the Maid of Athens. After heavy damage in the War of Independence the young Greek state gave the site to the misdemeanours court, in a building by the Danish architect Christian Hansen. Eleousa means the merciful one, perhaps a memory of the ancient Altar of Pity beneath it (This is Athens).
• The Varvakeios municipal central market, by the northeast corner of Psyrri, is a rectangular building of 1886 with a large covered hall under a glass and metal roof, lit by high symmetrical windows. Inside and around it are 73 food shops selling meat, fish, vegetables and groceries, and small cookhouses inside stay open through the night, drawing Athenians after midnight. Across the street, Varvakeios Square has been planted as a small grove (STASY).
• The central market fills the block between Athinas, Sofokleous, Evripidou and Aiolou streets, with its main entrance at Athinas 42. Plans began in 1876 and the building was paid for by a gift from the benefactor Ioannis Varvakis, who gave it its name; it opened in 1884. The fish hall at its heart takes in roughly five to ten tonnes of fresh fish a day. Open Monday to Saturday 08:00 to 18:00, closed on Sundays (This is Athens).

Squares and streets

• Life centres on Psyrri Square, also called Iroon (Heroes') Square, where the five main streets of the quarter meet: Miaouli, Karaiskaki, Agion Anargyron, Aristofanous and Aischylou (Greek Wikipedia).
• The square owes its name to the streets that lead into it, which honour heroes of the Greek War of Independence such as Karaiskakis and Miaoulis. In the late nineteenth century the name was also a jibe at the koutsavakides who hung around there (Wikipedia).
• Iroon Square dates from 1850 and looks almost like a film set: a marble fountain, lanes partly closed to traffic, low houses under old metal canopies and, along one side, a modernist block of the 1930s built at a wide angle so that it bends with the square (This is Athens).
• On the northwest side of Iroon Square stands the First Health Centre, put up in 1912 when Spyros Merkouris was mayor; today it houses city services for the 3rd district of Athens (Greek Wikipedia).
• Evripidou street, the northern edge of Psyrri, runs from Koumoundourou Square to Klafthmonos Square and has a distinctly eastern feel: it is lined with shops selling spices, sweets, nuts and coffee, many of them stocking traditional goods from the East (STASY).
• Athinas street, the eastern edge, links Omonia and Monastiraki squares. Laid out in line with the Acropolis rock, it was one of the first main roads of modern Athens, keeps many buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries, and is above all a food street, busy and noisy for most of the day (STASY).
• On Protogenous, a side street, vintage clothes and skateboard shops sit between bars; on Pallados you can kit out a kitchen with anything from handmade oil cans to wicker baskets and retsina jugs (This is Athens).

Getting there

• Monastiraki station, right across from the southeast corner of Psyrri, is an interchange between Metro Line 1 (the old electric railway) and Line 3. Its entrances are at Ifaistou and Athinas, at Athinas and Themidos, and on Monastiraki Square itself (STASY).
• Line 3 trains take about 42 minutes from the airport to Monastiraki, which is one stop from Syntagma and one from Kerameikos. Every Saturday Lines 2 and 3 run round the clock, although the Line 3 airport trains are left out (STASY).
• On Line 1, Thiseio, by the southwest corner of the quarter, is one stop from Monastiraki. From Piraeus the ride takes about 15 minutes to Thiseio and 17 to Monastiraki, and Omonia is the next stop north. At weekends Line 1 trains run roughly every ten and a half minutes for most of the day (STASY).

Did you know

• According to the Athens chronicler Epameinondas Stasinopoulos, the word koutsavakides comes from Dimitrios Koutsavakis, a cavalry corporal in King Otto's day who was a famous brawler (Greek Wikipedia).
• Papadiamantis was a regular at the grocery of the brothers Vasileios and Dimitrios Kachrimanis, on the corner of Sarri and Agion Anargyron streets, and wrote some of his finest pages there (iaath.gr).
• Monastiraki's restored neoclassical station of 1895 is one of the oldest in the network. Beside its platforms a 300 square metre space shows the bed of the river Eridanos, channelled in stone since antiquity, which can also be seen from the square through an excavation (STASY).

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Psyrri (4)
• Tavernas in Psyrri (3)
• Bars in Psyrri (5)
• Cafes in Psyrri (2)
• Souvlaki and street food in Psyrri (2)
• Bakeries in Psyrri (6)

Google Maps Review this place

Thiseio, close up

Thiseio is the neighbourhood of the Apostolou Pavlou pedestrian street, Thiseio station and the west side of the Ancient Agora, with the Acropolis in view, an open air cinema and the old Observatory on the Hill of the Nymphs. Everything below comes from the pages named in brackets and in the sources, read on 11 Oct 2026.

A little history

• Thiseio takes its name from the Temple of Hephaestus in the Agora, long mistaken for a temple of Theseus, the mythical founder king of Athens; by the time the mistake was clear the name had stuck to the neighbourhood (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• The three hills west of the Acropolis are the Hill of the Muses (today called Filopappou), the Pnyx and the Hill of the Nymphs (Ministry of Culture).
• The hills held two ancient districts, Koile and the south west part of Melite; Melite was one of the smartest addresses in the city, home to Themistocles, Miltiades and Kimon (Ministry of Culture).
• In the 1950s the architect Dimitrios Pikionis laid stone paved paths over the hills, mostly following ancient routes, with lookout and resting spots (Ministry of Culture).
• The 1997 to 2003 Unification of Archaeological Sites works set out to turn the three hills into one archaeological park that is also a green space (Ministry of Culture).
• Modern changes such as quarrying, building over parts of the site, the Bastias theatre and the opening of Apostolou Pavlou Street broke up the old landscape of the hills (Ministry of Culture).
• After the Persian Wars the hills were taken inside the Themistoclean wall and became one of the most crowded parts of ancient Athens (Ministry of Culture).
• From the 4th century BC a cross wall, the Diateichisma, cut the western districts off; it still survives along its full 900 metres (Ministry of Culture).
• The idea of a promenade round the western and southern slopes of the Acropolis was first put forward in 1847 and began to take shape in the early 1860s (This is Athens).
• Thiseio and Petralona were modest working class areas that gentrified in the early 1990s, drawing students and young professionals to their townhouses and period flats (This is Athens).
• Matt Barrett writes that the area was once full of metalworkers' furnaces, which would have suited the god Hephaestus better than Theseus (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• The Athens to Piraeus railway was officially launched as a steam line on 27 February 1869, and works at Thissio station began in the 1880s (STASY).

What it feels like

• The three hills are both an archaeological site and a mostly green area that works for a walk and a breather (Ministry of Culture).
• Less geared to tourists than Monastiraki, Thiseio is where locals go to people watch and eat out; at weekends a table on Iraklidon can be hard to find (This is Athens).
• Step a few doors off Apostolou Pavlou and you are in a calm, everyday Athenian middle class neighbourhood (This is Athens).
• From the Pnyx at sunset the historic centre looks like a green island, and turning round you see Piraeus harbour, the ships and the islands (This is Athens).

Where it starts and stops

• The Ancient Agora is a flat stretch bounded by the Acropolis rock and the Areopagus to the south and by the Kolonos Agoraios hill to the west (Ministry of Culture).
• Matt Barrett places Thiseio within easy walking distance of Plaka, bordering Monastiraki and Koukaki, and tucked between Filopappou Hill and the Acropolis (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).

Apostolou Pavlou, Iraklidon and Thiseio Square

• Apostolou Pavlou joins Dionysiou Areopagitou, and both are now pedestrian, so you can walk right round the Acropolis without meeting traffic (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Only the stretch of Apostolou Pavlou between Iraklidon and Otrineon is open to cars (National Observatory of Athens).
• Since 1 July 2025, while the main Agora entrance on Adrianou 24 is being redone, visitors go in and out through the gate on Thiseio Square, also called Jacqueline de Romilly Square (Ministry of Culture).
• At the corner of Apostolou Pavlou and Dimitriou Aiginitou is a Roman era shrine of Pan, a rock cut chamber with a life size relief of Pan, a nymph and a dog (Ministry of Culture).
• Cine Thisio describes Apostolou Pavlou as a central, busy pedestrian street in Thiseio (Cine Thisio).
• The heart of Thiseio is the small square where Nileos, Iraklidon, Akamantos and Apostolou Pavlou meet, ringed by restaurants and kafeneia (This is Athens).
• Iraklidon, which meets Apostolou Pavlou across from the Agora, is a narrow, tree shaded pedestrian street with old tram tracks; the further you go from the Acropolis, the more bohemian the cafes (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).

See and do

• Ancient Agora and Areopagus tickets as printed: full 20 euros, reduced 10 euros, sold at the ticket desks and online at tickets.hh.gr (Ministry of Culture).
• Official winter hours for the Ancient Agora: 08:00 to 16:30, last entry 16:10; summer (1 April to 31 August) 08:00 to 19:30, last entry 19:00 (Ministry of Culture).
• Autumn step down as printed: 1 to 15 October 08:00 to 18:00 (last entry 17:30) and 16 to 31 October 08:00 to 17:30 (last entry 17:00) (Ministry of Culture).
• Free entry days at the Agora: 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September and 28 October (Ministry of Culture).
• The Agora is closed on 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Easter Sunday, 25 December and 26 December (Ministry of Culture).
• Since 1 November 2025 the upper floor exhibition of the Stoa of Attalos and the Church of the Holy Apostles have been closed to visitors (Ministry of Culture).
• Wheelchair users can reach the Temple of Hephaestus area from the Thiseio Square entrance after phoning 210 3214824 or 210 3210180 (Ministry of Culture).
• On Wednesday 30 September 2026 the Agora site and museum ran short hours, 08:00 to 15:00, under an urgent notice dated 28.09.2026 (Ministry of Culture).
• The Pnyx was where the Assembly of the people met from the late 6th to the 4th century BC; Demosthenes, Pericles and Aeschines spoke there (Ministry of Culture).
• Excavations by the Archaeological Society in 1910 confirmed the site as the Pnyx, and H. A. Thompson led large digs there between 1930 and 1937 (Ministry of Culture).
• The Observatory visitor centre sits on the Hill of the Nymphs in the Sina building, begun in 1842 with money from George Sinas and designed by the Danish architect Theophil Hansen (National Observatory of Athens).
• Inside are the Geoastrophysics Museum, the historic library and old instruments, including the 1846 Bouris meridian refractor and the 16 cm telescope under the dome (National Observatory of Athens).
• Julius Schmidt, Observatory director from 1858 to 1884, used that 16 cm telescope to draw the most accurate Moon map of his time (National Observatory of Athens).
• The Observatory site faces the Parthenon, just north of the Pnyx, where Meton set up his heliotrope in the 5th century BC (National Observatory of Athens).
• Cine Thisio sells tickets at 10 euros full and 8 euros reduced, at the box office only (Cine Thisio).
• The Temple of Hephaistos and Athena, from the second half of the 5th century BC, looks down on the Agora from Kolonos Agoraios and is popularly called the Theseion (Ministry of Culture).
• The Stoa of Attalos (159 to 138 BC) on the east side of the Agora has been fully rebuilt and serves as the site museum (Ministry of Culture).
• The Panathenaic Way, the procession road from the Dipylon Gate up to the Acropolis, runs across the Agora (Ministry of Culture).
• The Church of the Holy Apostles inside the Agora dates to around AD 1000 (Ministry of Culture).
• The Philopappos Monument, 12 metres of Pentelic marble, was put up in AD 114 to 116 by Gaius Julius Antiochus Philopappos, a prince from Commagene and benefactor of Athens; N. Balanos partly restored it in 1904 (Ministry of Culture).
• Between 1950 and 1957 Pikionis built the resting pavilion and two stone paved paths, one leading to the Acropolis and one to a terrace on Filopappou Hill facing the Acropolis (Ministry of Culture).
• What you see at the Pnyx today is its third phase, from the time of Lycurgus (330 to 326 BC), with the speakers' platform cut into the rock in three steps (Ministry of Culture).
• The Hill of the Nymphs is named after a 6th century BC sanctuary of the Nymphs, identified from an inscription found by the archaeologist K. Pittakis in 1835 (Ministry of Culture).
• The large church of Agia Marina on the Hill of the Nymphs was founded in 1927, first designed by Ernst Ziller (Ministry of Culture).
• Observatory evening tours run all year in Greek and English: November to March on Friday and Saturday at 19:00 (Greek) and 20:00 (English); April, September and October on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at 20:00 and 21:00; May to August on the same days at 21:00 and 22:00 (National Observatory of Athens).
• Entry to the Observatory public evenings is 5 euros, free for unemployed and disabled visitors; tickets are sold online only through more.com, with no phone bookings, and holders should arrive 15 minutes early (National Observatory of Athens).
• The National Observatory calendar lists Thissio public night tours in Greek and English on 14, 17, 21, 23, 24, 30 and 31 October 2026 (National Observatory of Athens).
• The Doridis telescope, a 40 cm lens refractor 5 metres long made by Gautier in 1902, was first used for the solar eclipse of 30 August 1905 and was the largest telescope in Greece until 1959; it was renovated in 2014 (National Observatory of Athens).
• Cine Thisio's own site says it was built in 1935 and has opened every spring and summer since, apart from a forced break in the Second World War; the Maniakis family has run it since 1980 (Cine Thisio).
• Cine Thisio is at Apostolou Pavlou 7, about 10 minutes on foot from Thissio station; the season usually runs from late April or early May to around the end of October, and seats cannot be booked (Cine Thisio).
• The Melina Mercouri Cultural Centre at Iraklidon 66 fills the former Poulopoulos hat factory, founded in 1886, with an old Athens street exhibition and the Haridimos shadow puppet theatre (This is Athens).
• The Association of Hellenic Archaeologists, in a neoclassical mansion at Ermou 134, holds talks and workshops and shows films in its walled garden in summer (This is Athens).
• The Ministry page lists October hours at the Ancient Agora of 08:00 to 18:00 from 1 to 15 October (last entry 17:30) and 08:00 to 17:30 from 16 to 31 October (last entry 17:00); it asks visitors to check it daily for changes (Ministry of Culture).
• Since 1 July 2025, while the main entrance at Adrianou 24 is being redeveloped, visitors enter and leave the Ancient Agora by the gate on Thiseio Square (Jacqueline de Romilly) (Ministry of Culture).
• Since 1 November 2025 the exhibition on the upper floor of the Stoa of Attalos and the Church of the Holy Apostles have been closed to the public (Ministry of Culture).
• Wheelchair access to the area of the Temple of Hephaestus is through the entrance on Thiseio Square (Apostolou Pavlou Street), arranged with the site first by phone (+302103214824 or +302103210180) (Ministry of Culture).

Getting there

• Thiseio station (signed Thissio) is on Line 1 between Petralona and Monastiraki, about 15 minutes from Piraeus and about 36 minutes from Kifissia (STASY).
• From Thissio the first train towards Kifissia leaves at 05:15 and the last at 00:30; towards Piraeus the first is 05:21 and the last 00:51 (STASY).
• On Line 1, trains run every 6 to 7.5 minutes on weekdays from 05:30 to 22:30, and every 10.5 minutes on weekends from 05:30 to 23:30 (STASY).
• The Observatory visitor centre is a 10 minute walk up the hill from Thissio (Line 1) or Monastiraki (Line 3); enter from Pnikos or Otrineon Street (National Observatory of Athens).
• The Ministry lists Monastiraki and Thiseio on the electric railway, plus buses 025 and 026 to Monastiraki Square, for reaching the Agora (Ministry of Culture).
• Athens Voice reported on 22 May 2026 that Thiseio station reopened to the public after special security closures for the Final Four, while Faliro stayed shut (Athens Voice).
• The Observatory suggests walking from Thiseio or Monastiraki along Apostolou Pavlou, then Pnykos and Dimitriou Aiginitou to the top of the Hill of the Nymphs; from Akropoli metro, go via Dionysiou Areopagitou (National Observatory of Athens).

Did you know

• The Altar of the Twelve Gods in the Agora was treated as the heart of Athens, the milestone from which distances were measured (Ministry of Culture).
• A marker reading I am the boundary stone of the Agora (500 BC) was found by the house of Simon the cobbler, where Socrates used to meet his pupils (Ministry of Culture).
• The rock cut building known as Socrates' Prison has no confirmed link to Socrates; in the Second World War it hid antiquities from the Acropolis and the National Archaeological Museum (Ministry of Culture).
• The Syngros meridian telescope by the Sina building, bought in 1896 with money from Andreas Syngros, set the official time of Greece until 1964 (National Observatory of Athens).
• Women hoping for a child used to slide down the smooth rocks by Agia Marina, a custom called the Kylithra that the Ministry says survives today (Ministry of Culture).
• A local story says that in 1645 the Ottoman commander Yusuf Aga planned to blow up the church of Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris during its feast, but lightning hit his gunpowder store in the Propylaia the night before (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• On Clean Monday many Athenians fly kites on the hills here, with music and dancing along Apostolou Pavlou (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• During the Occupation in 1941 to 1944, freight trains carried Red Cross supplies and food from Piraeus to Thissio station to help feed Athens (STASY).

Eat and drink nearby

• At Cine Thisio the bar serves homemade sour cherry spoon sweets and juice, its own liqueur, cheese pie, hot dogs and tsipouro (Cine Thisio).
• To Steki tou Ilia at Eptachalkou 5 is known for lamb chops sold by the kilo, with tables in the yard of Agios Athanasios church in summer (This is Athens).
• Skales Kafeneio at Akamantos 2, down a few steps, serves coffee, spirits and small plates such as tirokafteri, fava and dakos (This is Athens).
• The Underdog at Iraklidon 8 is a third wave coffee and brunch spot in a restored neoclassical building (This is Athens).

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Thiseio (5)
• Tavernas in Thiseio (2)
• Bars in Thiseio (3)
• Cafes in Thiseio (4)
• Souvlaki and street food in Thiseio (1)

Google Maps Review this place

Kifisia, close up

Kifisia is the leafy northern suburb at the end of metro Line 1: old summer villas and hotels, two squares that feel like small gardens, a natural history museum, a famous spring flower show and some of the best window shopping in Athens. Everything below comes from the pages named in brackets and in the sources, read on 11 Oct 2026.

A little history

• In AD 267 the historian Publius Herennius Dexippus led a force of two thousand Athenians that beat the raiding Heruli in the Kifisia area and drove them off (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Under Frankish rule, between the early 13th and mid 15th centuries, officials built country houses in Kifisia between Profitis Ilias hill and Alonia, with big gardens of fruit, plants and flowers worked by local gardeners (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• In Ottoman times a Turkish governor of Athens had his tower where the church of Agios Dimitrios stands today, and a mosque stood on what became Platanos Square; after liberation it served as a police station and was later pulled down to enlarge the square (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• The Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, who came in 1667, described a small town of three hundred tiled houses in a fertile plain, half Muslim and half Christian, famous for its crisp white cherries (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• King Otto, the first king of Greece, spent many summers in Kifisia in a house on today's Othonos Street and liked to ride round the suburb early in the morning (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• In 1870 native Kifisians, mostly landowners, set up a cooperative called Koinotis Kifisias, an early step towards organising the village's economy (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• The railway from Athens reached Kifisia in 1882; the steam train, nicknamed the Thirio (the Beast), was electrified in 1902, and Kifisia grew into a summer resort for Athenians (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Around 1880 Kifisia had no more than 700 residents; by 1900 there were more than 1,500, helped by Greek families from Chios, Egypt and Constantinople such as the Syngros, Benakis and Kassavetis families (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• The first hotels, among them the Mela (the Grand Hotel de Kifissia), the Renaissance, the Aigli, the Plaza and the Pyrna, all stood by Platanos Square except the Pyrna (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Kefalari then took the lead with the Apergis hotel (1910, second wing 1921), the Cecil, the Pentelikon (1923) and the Theoxenia (1928) (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• The old municipal history says a decree of 16 February 1925 split Kifisia from the Municipality of Athens and made it a community that also took in Ekali and Nea Erythraia; Ekali left in July 1928 and Nea Erythraia in January 1934 (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Greek refugees from Lythri and Vourla on the Erythraia peninsula settled in Alonia from 1914; after 1922 the Kifisia Refugee Association, founded in 1923, won 152 stremmata of land at today's Nea Erythraia (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• In 1926 the benefactor Emmanouil Benakis founded a home for the children of working mothers on Kifisias Avenue, later named the Benakeio Children's Foundation of Kifisia; during the Occupation its garden became a vegetable plot and its soup kitchen fed thousands from 1941 to 1944 (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• The Cecil hotel opened on 10 July 1924 with a French chef, cook and pastry chef and held a gala with well known orchestras every Thursday; Eleftherios Venizelos was a regular guest and spent most of his summers in Kifisia (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• In the 1960s Kifisia took in Greeks who had left Egypt; their quarter, Asty Aigyptioton, by the church of Agia Paraskevi, is described by the municipality as one of the prettiest in town (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• From about the mid 1960s the green centre began to give way to concrete, as mansions, old buildings and hotels became shops and offices, some carefully, like the Cecil and the Apergis (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Matt Barrett writes that Kifisia was a retreat of philosophers under the emperor Hadrian, when the wealthy Herodes Atticus built a villa there (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• The current municipal history says Kifisia became a municipality in 1943, after a community period it dates 1926 to 1942; Konstantinos Dimas was the first elected community head (Municipality of Kifisia).
• Vasilis Xypolytas has been mayor of Kifisia since 2024 (Municipality of Kifisia).

What it feels like

• This is Athens describes a well to do suburb full of shops, cafes and restaurants, with quiet tree lined streets, historic mansions and a natural history museum, and says it is home to many expats (This is Athens).
• Before it became a residential suburb in the late 1950s, Kifisia was the summer retreat of politicians and wealthy Athenians, a green oasis of holiday homes and luxury hotels (This is Athens).
• The leafy suburb is always cooler than the city centre, and the official guide says you notice the fresh air (This is Athens).
• Matt Barrett puts Kifisia on the slopes of Mount Penteli, with a milder climate that drew rich Greeks to build summer houses; many now live there all year (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Matt Barrett counts hundreds of shops, cafes and restaurants along shady streets, and says simply wandering past the old villas, hotels and gardens is entertainment enough (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• High end labels abound, but the official guide also points to Kifisia as a place to look for young Greek designers (This is Athens).

Where it starts and stops

• Today's Municipality of Kifisia joins three units, Kifisia, Ekali and Nea Erythraia, covering about 36 square kilometres with 72,860 residents, as the municipal site prints it (Municipality of Kifisia).
• The town hall is at Dionysou and Myrsinis 2, Kifisia; the municipal switchboard is +302132007100 (Municipality of Kifisia).
• The Kifisia grove (Alsos Kifisias) lies opposite the train station (This is Athens).
• Around 1880 the first hotels clustered by Platanos Square, as hoteliers saw Kokkinaras, Kefalari and Tatoiou Street as out of the way; a few decades later Kefalari took the lead (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Villa Kazouli, built in 1905, marked the entrance to Kifisia; KAT hospital, whose metro stop is the last before the terminus, was later built on part of its estate (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).

See and do

• The National Museum of Natural History Goulandris and its GAIA Centre are at Othonos 100, 145 62 Kifisia; phone +302108015870 (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• Official museum hours: Monday to Friday 09:00 to 16:00, Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 15:00, closed on official holidays (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• Museum tickets as printed: 12 euros full; 7 euros for children 3 to 18, over 65s, students and registered unemployed visitors; free for children up to 2 (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• The museum page lists the 360 degree Dome show Facing the Truth with a separate 5 euro ticket on top of museum admission; ask at the desk, because the same page also lists the show under what a ticket includes (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• A museum ticket covers the permanent natural history exhibition, the permanent exhibition Climate Change and Us and the temporary exhibition Biodiversity. Everything is connected (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• Entry is free on the first Saturday of every month, on a Saturday or Sunday around 18 May for International Museum Day, and on 5 June, World Environment Day (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• Free entry also applies to visitors with disabilities and a carer, ICOM card holders, licensed guides, teachers, journalists, Greeks doing military service and families with four or more children, all with ID where asked (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• The museum library is open to the public Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 13:00, and the shop keeps museum hours (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• The museum was founded in 1964 by Angelos and Niki Goulandris (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Children head for the triceratops; the collections cover marine biology, botany, zoology, geology, palaeontology and entomology, and there is a shady garden cafe with a fish pond (This is Athens).
• Every May a popular flower show fills Alsos Kifisias, the park opposite the train station; it began in 1934, stopped during the Second World War and the Civil War and came back in 1956 (This is Athens).
• The flower show took on an official form in 1937, run each year by the local tourism committee in the Kifisia grove; King George II cut the ribbon that year, and the municipality took over running it for good in 1965 (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Matt Barrett says the grove, which he calls Kifissia Park, also hosts concerts, book fairs and other events, mostly in the warm months (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Kifisia has two open air cinemas: Bomboniera at Papadiamanti 12, open since 1918, and Chloe at Kassaveti 17, set in a garden; both usually run from late May to early October (This is Athens).
• Horse drawn carriages still wait at the corner of Levidou and Kolokotroni for gentle sightseeing rides, on Saturdays and Sundays only (This is Athens).
• Alonia is the oldest part of Kifisia, with overgrown cottages, old mansions, winding streets, old fashioned shops, tavernas and bakeries; look for herb and spice shops on Agiou Tryfonos Street (This is Athens).
• Every Wednesday morning one of the city's largest farmers' markets starts at the top of Agiou Tryfonos Street and spreads along the cemetery walls (This is Athens).
• The municipality says the flower show was the idea of Konstantinos Goulimis, a lawyer and amateur botanist, in 1934; ladies brought flowers from their gardens and gardeners brought vegetables and new plants (Municipality of Kifisia).
• A tourism committee ran the flower show until 1960; the municipality then took it over through its own public body, and since 2024 the Municipality of Kifisia runs it directly (Municipality of Kifisia).
• The 72nd Kifisia Flower Show was held in the Kifisia grove in spring 2026; the municipality posted its farewell to the show on 18 May 2026, after a scientific day at the Goulandris museum on 15 May (Municipality of Kifisia).
• The Georgios Drosinis Museum, in the house where the poet lived, is at Diomidous Kyriakou and Agion Theodoron, 145 62 Kifisia; entry is free and it opens daily 08:00 to 14:00, Saturdays to 15:00 (phone +302108087230) (Drosinis Museum).
• The Drosinis Museum fills villa Amaryllis, the house where the poet spent his last years, named after the heroine of one of his best loved books; it opened in 1997, with three rooms upstairs and the municipal library on the ground floor (Visit Greece).
• Visit Greece lists the Drosinis Museum as open Monday to Friday and Sunday 08:00 to 14:00 and Saturday 08:00 to 15:00, with free entry (Visit Greece).
• Families such as the Syngros, Kalvokoressis, Benakis, Pesmazoglou, Choremis, Kassavetis, Melas and Kazoulis left grand villas that sit beside the simple houses of the old locals, giving Kifisia its mixed architecture (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).

Squares and streets

• A pleasant walk up Kolokotroni Street leads to Kefalari Square, with a small park, cafes and restaurants for people watching and a large church where weddings are common on Saturday evenings (This is Athens).
• Locals say a coin tossed into the pond in Kefalari park makes your wish come true (This is Athens).
• Matt Barrett likens both the main square and Kefalari Square to small versions of the National Garden, with ponds, palm trees and flower beds (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Platanos Square is named for a huge plane tree; Hans Christian Andersen, visiting at Easter 1841, wrote of its branches shading almost the whole village square. The tree is now gone (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Varsos, the old pastry shop and cafe, is at Kassaveti 5, and the Chloe open air cinema is further up at Kassaveti 17 (This is Athens).
• Othonos (Otto's) Street is where King Otto had his Kifisia summer house (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).

Getting there

• Kifissia is the northern terminus of metro Line 1; the full ride from Piraeus takes about 51 minutes (STASY).
• From Kifissia the STASY trip table gives about 32 minutes to Omonia and 35 minutes to Monastiraki; in the other direction Kifissia is about 32 minutes from Omonia and 34 from Monastiraki (STASY).
• First train from Kifissia 05:00 and last 00:15 (a later 00:30 train runs only as far as Omonia); trains arrive at Kifissia from 05:21, the last at 01:06 (STASY).
• Line 1 runs every 6 to 7.5 minutes on weekdays between 05:30 and 22:30, and every 10.5 minutes on Saturdays and Sundays between 05:30 and 23:30 (STASY).
• Buses from Kifissia station: B9 and 721 stop there, and 522, 523, 524, 530, 543 and 560 start there; from Platanos Square A7, 503, 504, 507, 509, 535 and 536 stop and 550 starts (Goulandris Natural History Museum).
• Matt Barrett notes that the ISAP terminus is at the bottom of Kifisia Square, about half an hour from Monastiraki, and that half a dozen buses run downtown (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Buses into Kifisia listed by Visit Greece include the X14 express from Syntagma, the 500 night line from Piraeus, the 550 from Palaio Faliro, the A7 from Stournari, the 721 from Acharnes and the 509 from Zirineio (Visit Greece).

Did you know

• Before dawn on 28 October 1940, at his Kifisia house on Dagkli Street, Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas gave his famous No to the Italian ultimatum (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• The trees on Kolokotroni Street were once known as the gum trees, because children stuck their chewed gum on the stumps (This is Athens).
• During the Second World War the RAF used the historic Cecil Hotel, which no longer operates as a hotel (This is Athens).
• Matt Barrett writes that both the Germans and the British had their headquarters in Kifisia during the war, though not at the same time (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Matt Barrett writes that the old American Club, used as Nazi headquarters in the war and later a Cold War hub with a bookstore, bar, pool and the JUSMAG cinema, is now the International School of Athens (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• At the 1937 flower show the prize went to artichokes: the Kapsampelis and Koutsouradis families shared first prize, and early shows displayed artichokes, strawberries and cherries more than flowers (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• At a dinner Venizelos gave for Ismet Inonu at the Cecil, the cook painted both leaders' faces on a jelly so well that no guest dared eat it, as Anna Dima told the story (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• In summer 1984 the town hall moved into a modern building by the architect Alexandros Tombazis; before that it sat in the old Aigli hotel on Platanos Square (Municipality of Kifisia, old site).
• Before the city swallowed Kifisia, Athenians rode the electric railway to the end of the line to stroll and sit in cafes, a weekend habit still loved by Athenian teenagers (This is Athens).

Eat and drink nearby

• Hyde Kifisia is an all day spot at Kolokotroni 5 with a hidden courtyard of lights, plants and running water behind a small stone house, in the heart of the Kifisia market (Cantina).
• Maison Colette Kifisia is the French style all day bistro that moved from Psychiko to Papadiamanti Street, into the garden building that once housed Buba, at the end of August 2026 (Athinorama).
• Krepes Kifisias (Κρέπες Κηφισιάς) is a sweet and savoury crepe, sandwich and coffee stop at Adrianou 4 and Kifisias Avenue, a few minutes on foot from the station; it started in 1993 at a wooden kiosk by the station (Krepes Kifisias).
• CAKE Kifisia is an American style bakery and coffee shop at Argyropoulou 3 (CAKE).
• Varsos, the pastry shop and cafe at Kassaveti 5, has been the classic meeting point since 1892 and is known for its meringues and traditional sweets (This is Athens).

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Kifisia (12)
• Tavernas in Kifisia (3)
• Bars in Kifisia (8)
• Cafes in Kifisia (1)
• Souvlaki and street food in Kifisia (1)
• Bakeries in Kifisia (5)

Google Maps Review this place

Monastiraki, close up

Monastiraki is the busy heart of old Athens below the Acropolis: a square with a metro station on top of an ancient river, a mosque and a Byzantine church side by side, Hadrian's Library and the Roman Agora a few steps away, and lanes of shops that end in the Sunday flea market. Everything below comes from the pages named in brackets and in the sources, read on 12 Oct 2026.

A little history

• Monastiraki means little monastery: the name comes from a monastic compound that once stood here, and This is Athens says the small Pantanassa basilica on the square is all that survives of it (This is Athens).
• The Pantanassa started out as the private church of Nikolaos Bonefatzis and later became the main church of a convent whose buildings covered the whole square, which is why it was also called the Great Monastery (Archdiocese of Athens).
• As the convent declined it became a dependency of the Kaisariani Monastery and then, perhaps from 1690, a parish church; by 1821 at the latest people were calling it Monastiraki (Archdiocese of Athens).
• This is Athens calls the Pantanassa a 10th century basilica, while the Archdiocese of Athens says nobody knows the date exactly: scholars place it anywhere from the 7th to the 12th century, with Orlandos favouring the 9th (Archdiocese of Athens).
• After independence the church was renovated twice, in the second half of the 19th century and in 1911 under the architect Ioannis Kolliniatis; its old precinct wall was then pulled down and today's square was opened up (National Hellenic Research Foundation).
• Hadrian's Library was built around AD 132 by the emperor Hadrian, wrecked by the Heruli in AD 267 and then built into the Late Roman city wall; the Roman prefect Herculius repaired it in AD 412 (Ministry of Culture).
• In the library courtyard stood a 5th century early Christian quatrefoil church; on its ruins a three aisled basilica rose in the 7th century and a single aisled church in the 11th, the Megali Panagia, which burned down in 1885 (Ministry of Culture).
• Under Ottoman rule the voivode, the Turkish governor of Athens, had his seat inside Hadrian's Library, and in 1835 the barracks of King Otto's era were built where his residence had stood (Ministry of Culture).
• The Roman Agora was built between 19 and 11 BC with a donation from Julius Caesar and Augustus, and under Hadrian its courtyard was paved with stone slabs (Ministry of Culture).
• After the Heruli raid of AD 267 the city shrank inside the Late Roman wall, and its administrative and commercial centre moved from the Ancient Agora to the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library (Ministry of Culture).
• The Tzisdarakis Mosque was built in 1759 by the Ottoman governor of Athens, Mustafa Aga Tzisdarakis, in the heart of the old market, Kato Pazari, next to the fountain that marked the centre of the market (Ministry of Culture).
• The architect Anastasios Orlandos restored the mosque in 1915, and in 1918 it was handed over to the newly founded Museum of Greek Handicraft, today's Museum of Modern Greek Culture (Ministry of Culture).
• Digging for the metro at Monastiraki uncovered homes and other remains from the 8th century BC, the Geometric era, up to the 19th century AD; in every era the Eridanos river was the main axis of the town plan (Elliniko Metro).
• The Eridanos rose at the foot of Lycabettus and ran through Athens into the Ilissos; its bed, 2.60 m wide, was lined with big conglomerate stones in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, and under Hadrian (AD 117 to 138) it was vaulted over in brick, filled in and turned into a sewer (Elliniko Metro).
• Avissinia Square is home to Yusurum, the second hand bazaar named after Noah and Elias Yusurum, Jewish merchants who were leading members of the local antique dealers' association in the early 1900s (This is Athens).

What it feels like

• This is Athens calls Monastiraki the city's tourist hub, even though Syntagma is the nominal centre, and sums it up as a place to browse by day and bar hop by night (This is Athens).
• Old and new Athens meet here: look up from the square towards the Acropolis and your eye crosses both a mosque and a Byzantine church (This is Athens).
• The STASY station page describes a typical old town district of narrow, irregular streets and small buildings, laid out in the Ottoman and partly the Byzantine way, where street stalls and small shops sell just about everything (STASY).
• Matt Barrett calls Monastiraki Square a centre of activity day and night; on Sundays it seems every Athenian is there buying or selling, so come early, because after about 11 in the morning the crowd becomes impossible (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• On Saturday nights, in true Athenian style, junk sellers setting up their stalls mix with smartly dressed people heading out to bars and restaurants (This is Athens).
• Lower Adrianou, along the metro tracks and the Ancient Agora, has become a popular spot for dinner or drinks, with a passing parade of people and, in summer, usually a pleasant breeze (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• The square is paved in a colourful stone pattern laid like a carpet, whose flowing lines stand for all the different people who live in Athens, Athens Voice notes (Athens Voice).

Where it starts and stops

• STASY names the main streets of Monastiraki as Adrianou, Pandrosou, Ifaistou, Thiseiou, Agiou Filippou, Astigos and Ermou (STASY).
• The metro station sits on Monastiraki Square, where Ermou Street and Athinas Street meet (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Mitropoleos Street links Syntagma Square with Monastiraki Square, and Athinas Street runs up from Monastiraki to Omonia (STASY).
• Across Ermou lies Psyrri, which the STASY page frames by Athinas, Ermou and Evripidou streets (STASY).
• Next door, the area between Mitropoleos, Athinas and Stadiou streets is the old commercial heart of the historic centre, with more than 2,500 shops in winding lanes and pedestrian streets (STASY).
• The open air bazaar south of Avissinia Square stretches as far as Thissio, with collectors hunting for old phone cards, trinkets and tools (This is Athens).

See and do

• Monastiraki Square faces the Acropolis rock and Plaka and holds three landmarks: the Tzistarakis Mosque, Hadrian's Library and the Byzantine church of the Pantanassa (STASY).
• The Tzisdarakis Mosque, at Areos 1 and Pandrosou, opens every day except Tuesday from 09:30 to 16:30, last entry 16:10; phone 2103242066 (Museum of Modern Greek Culture).
• Mosque tickets cost 5 euros, or 3 euros reduced, and are sold at the main entrance of the Museum of Modern Greek Culture at Areos 10 (Museum of Modern Greek Culture).
• Entry to the mosque is free on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September, 28 October and every first and third Sunday from 1 November to 31 March; the museum is closed on 25 and 26 December, 1 January, 25 March, 1 May and Orthodox Easter Sunday (Museum of Modern Greek Culture).
• The museum's page says the mosque is not accessible for visitors with disabilities (Museum of Modern Greek Culture).
• Inside, the mosque now tells the story of the museum itself, through objects from the 17th to the mid 20th century, starting with the first piece it acquired in 1918: a vest from a 17th century bridal and festive costume from Skyros (Ministry of Culture).
• Look for the founding inscription above the entrance door and, inside on the east side, the mihrab, the prayer niche, decorated with honeycomb vaulting, painted plant motifs and inscriptions (Ministry of Culture).
• The Museum of Modern Greek Culture fills the block framed by Adrianou, Areos, Kladou and Vrysakiou streets, plus the Tzisdarakis Mosque: buildings from the 18th to the 20th century holding about 3,000 objects, with a cafe, a shop and an outdoor theatre (Hellenic Heritage).
• Its main entrance is at Areos 10, five minutes on foot from Monastiraki Square; tickets are 15 euros full and 8 euros reduced; phone +302103239382 (Hellenic Heritage).
• Main museum hours, 1 April to 31 October: Monday and Thursday 09:30 to 16:30, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday 08:00 to 20:00, closed Tuesday; 1 November to 31 March: 09:00 to 16:30 every day except Tuesday (Hellenic Heritage).
• Hadrian's Library is at Areos 3; tickets are 10 euros full and 5 euros reduced, sold on site or online at tickets.hh.gr; phone +302103249350 (Ministry of Culture).
• Hadrian's Library opens daily at 08:00 and closes at 20:00 in summer (last entry 19:30) and 15:00 in winter (last entry 14:40); in October it closes at 18:30 until the 15th (last entry 18:10) and at 18:00 from the 16th to the 31st (last entry 17:40) (Ministry of Culture).
• Entry to Hadrian's Library is free on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September, 28 October and the first and third Sunday of each month from 1 November to 31 March; it is closed on 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Easter Sunday and 25 and 26 December (Hellenic Heritage).
• A step free path of beaten earth for wheelchairs and buggies starts at the entrance on Dexippou Street and leads into the eastern part of the site; the western facade is not open to wheelchair users for now, and there are accessible toilets (Ministry of Culture).
• The library was a monumental rectangle with a Corinthian gateway; the book store, reading rooms and lecture halls lay along the east side, Pausanias describes a hundred columns of Phrygian marble round the inner court with a large cistern and a cooling pool, and today only the northern wing survives (Hellenic Heritage).
• The Ministry gives the Roman Agora's address as Dioskouron Street in Plaka; tickets are 10 euros full and 5 euros reduced; phone +302103245220 (Ministry of Culture).
• Roman Agora hours: 08:00 to 20:00 in summer (last entry 19:30) and 08:00 to 15:00 in winter (last entry 14:40); 1 to 15 October 08:00 to 18:30 (last entry 18:10), then 08:00 to 18:00 (last entry 17:40); closed 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Easter Sunday and 25 and 26 December (Ministry of Culture).
• Since 1 November 2025 the Fethiye Mosque inside the Roman Agora has been open to the public every Wednesday and Sunday from 08:00 to 15:00 (Ministry of Culture).
• The Roman Agora is a big rectangle, 111 by 98 metres: a courtyard ringed by stoas, shops and storerooms, with an Ionic gateway on the east and a Doric one on the west (Ministry of Culture).
• The western Gate of Athena Archegetis has four Doric columns on a base of Pentelic marble; it was built in 11 BC with gifts from Julius Caesar and Augustus and dedicated by the people of Athens to Athena Archegetis, their patron goddess (Ministry of Culture).
• Also on the site: the Fethiye Mosque on the north side, built in 1456 over an early Christian basilica; the Agoranomion, a 1st century AD building with three arched doorways and a broad stair; and the 1st century AD public latrines, with benches round all four walls (Ministry of Culture).
• The Tower of the Winds, the octagonal clock of Andronikos Kyrrhestes on the eastern side of the Roman Agora, was a water clock built in the 1st century BC; each of its eight faces shows one of the eight winds in relief, hence the name (STASY).
• The Pantanassa, dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin (feast day 15 August), stands on Monastiraki Square where Mitropoleos meets Athinas, opposite the electric railway station; the ground around it has risen, so about a third of the church now lies below street level (Archdiocese of Athens).
• It is a barrel vaulted, three aisled basilica of about 17 by 17 metres, built of rough stones, with an ancient Greek capital set into each of its four corners; the narthex and women's gallery were added in 1911 (Archdiocese of Athens).
• Since 30 July 2026 visitors to the Ancient Agora enter by the gate at Adrianou 24, as Hellenic Heritage announced on 29 July 2026 (Hellenic Heritage).
• The Ancient Agora ticket costs 20 euros full and 10 euros reduced and covers the site and its museum; phone +302103210185 (Ministry of Culture).
• From 1 April 2026, until further notice, the Ancient Agora site and museum open from 08:00 to 19:30, Hellenic Heritage announced on 2 April 2026 (Hellenic Heritage).
• Since 1 November 2025 the exhibition on the upper floor of the Stoa of Attalos and the Church of the Holy Apostles have been closed to the public (Ministry of Culture).
• Inside Monastiraki station, a 300 square metre archaeological site on the second level is crossed by a 24 metre glass footbridge over the vaulted bed of the Eridanos, where you can still hear the river flowing; you can also look down into the dig from the square through a glass frame (Elliniko Metro).

Squares and streets

• Avissinias Square, also called Giousouroum, is the main square of Monastiraki in STASY's words: old furniture, antiques and copies, second hand goods, wardrobes, bookcases, frames, mirrors, gramophone records and musical instruments. Come early to buy, or around noon just to look (STASY).
• On Sundays Avissinia Square takes on a festive air, with live music from street bands, though This is Athens warns that not everything for sale is a bargain or an antique (This is Athens).
• Ifestou, also written Ifaistou, runs off the square to the right of the station; Matt Barrett calls it the fashion capital of Athens for teenagers and twenty somethings and rates its record and CD shops among the best anywhere (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Adrianou runs from Hadrian's Library to Thiseio station, lined with one and two storey neoclassical buildings full of traditional and antique shops, with street sellers on Sundays and cafes looking straight onto the Ancient Agora (STASY).
• Ermou takes its name from Hermes, the protector of trade; it was one of the first streets laid out by Kleanthis and Schaubert and was the centre of women's fashion from the late 19th century to the 1960s (STASY).
• Pandrossou runs down from the Cathedral square to Monastiraki Square: its upper end near the Cathedral is the smarter stretch, and it narrows into smaller shops as it reaches the square (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Athinas, from Omonia down to Monastiraki, was laid out with the Acropolis rock as its backdrop and was one of the first main roads of modern Athens; it is still a busy food street, where shops selling spices, fruit and nuts fill the air with scents that recall the bazaars of the Middle East (STASY).
• Mitropoleos is lined with neoclassical buildings, and along the way the Metropolis, the Athens Cathedral, dominates Mitropoleos Square (STASY).
• At the Monastiraki end of Mitropoleos are the souvlaki places that Athenians have long called the best in town; Barrett admits you can probably find better elsewhere, but the reputation has stuck (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Ifestou once ran all the way from Agios Filippos to Mitropoleos Square; when the station was built it was cut in two, the eastern part was renamed Pandrosou, after Pandrosos, daughter of Kekrops, and the western part, where the blacksmiths once worked, kept the name Ifestou (Athens Voice).

Getting there

• Monastiraki is the interchange between metro Line 1 and Line 3, with exits at Ifaistou and Athinas, at Athinas and Themidos, and onto Monastiraki Square (STASY).
• On Line 1 the ride takes about 17 minutes from Piraeus and about 35 minutes from Kifissia, as STASY rounds it (STASY).
• Line 1 first trains leave Monastiraki at 05:16 towards Kifissia and 05:19 towards Piraeus; the last leave at 00:31 towards Kifissia and 00:49 towards Piraeus (STASY).
• Line 3 links Monastiraki with the Airport: the trip from the Airport takes about 42 minutes, and trains to and from the Airport run every 36 minutes, every day of the week (STASY).
• The STASY station page gives the first Line 3 train from Monastiraki to the Airport at 05:49 and the last at 23:14 (STASY).
• Line 3 works: since Wednesday 16 September 2026, from Sunday to Thursday the Eleonas, Kerameikos and Monastiraki stations close at 21:40; after that, Airport trains start from Syntagma (22:02, 22:38 and 23:14), and a temporary X24 bus links Syntagma and Egaleo, with stops on Ermou for Monastiraki (STASY).
• Every Saturday Line 3 runs round the clock, except for trains to and from the Airport (STASY).
• Line 3 also stops at Piraeus, 2 minutes from its Dimotiko Theatro terminus, so both lines at Monastiraki now reach Piraeus (STASY).
• Buses 025 and 026 stop at Monastiraki, and Hadrian's Library is 2 minutes on foot from the metro (Hellenic Heritage).

Did you know

• To get lime for his mosque, Mustafa Aga Tzistarakis took down the 17th column of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the visitgreece text on the STASY page says (STASY).
• In the story Matt Barrett tells, Athenians believed each column held a curse in the ground; when the column fell plague broke out, Tzistarakis lost his post because ancient monuments belonged to the Sultan, and the temple was said to wail for its column at night until he was poisoned (Matt Barrett's Athens Guide).
• Pausanias described Hadrian's Library in detail without ever mentioning that it was a library (Hellenic Heritage).
• The Athenians treated Hadrian as a god and honoured him inside the Parthenon itself (Hellenic Heritage).
• Two saints are linked with the Pantanassa: Hosios Loukas of Steiris (896 to 953) became a monk here, and Saint Nektarios of Aegina served here as a deacon between 1881 and 1885 (Archdiocese of Athens).
• The neoclassical station building on the square opened on 17 May 1895 under its original name, Monastirion (Athens Voice).
• The name is so tied to the market that, as This is Athens puts it, all you have to say is Monastiraki and people hear the flea market (This is Athens).
• Over the years the square has had other names: Old Barracks Square, after the prison of that name nearby; Hadrian's Square, after the library; Stis Karotses, because most of the city's coachmen waited there; and Tziertzidika, from the Turkish word for liver, after the taverns that served liver mezedes (Athens Voice).
• In 1814 a striking clock given by Lord Elgin was set on a tower east of Hadrian's Library and became the landmark of the market; its hands stopped in the great market fire of 9 August 1884, and parts of its mechanism and its inscription are now in the National Historical Museum (Athens Voice).
• Astigos Street in Monastiraki is named after Frank Abney Hastings, the British philhellene who fought in the Greek Revolution with the Karteria, a ship he had built in London (News247).

Eat and drink nearby

Places we have already checked in these streets, each with its own card, sources and Google Maps link:

• Restaurants in Monastiraki (8)
• Tavernas in Monastiraki (2)
• Bars in Monastiraki (10)
• Cafes in Monastiraki (2)
• Souvlaki and street food in Monastiraki (5)
• Bakeries in Monastiraki (2)

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