Historic Center

acropolis museum

Until the middle of the 17th century, the Acropolis’ most important monuments remained generally intact, as shown by the drawings of European travellers. From 1645 until 1834, various monuments were damaged, destroyed, or looted. The site was declared an archaeological site proclaimed by the newly established Greek State in 1834. Then began efforts to gather, preserve and protect the antiquities scattered on the Rock. Their number, which was increasing steadily due to the archaeological excavations being conducted in the hill’s ancient deposits, made it pressing to create a museum on the site. Thus began the search for a suitable location, which finally led to the decision in 1863 to establish the Museum in a hollow in the ground, southeast of the Parthenon. The Museum was founded in 1865, completed in 1874 and housed the finds of the first excavations on the Acropolis; however, it proved insufficient to accommodate the abundance of new finds which had been brought to light during the large, ongoing excavations, leading thus to the construction of a second small building in 1888, next to the previous one. Finally, following the Second World War, a radical architectural refurbishment was undertaken resulting in the creation of a new building that continued to operate until 2007.

 

In 1979 the problem of insufficient space arose once again and the idea of constructing a new Acropolis Museum emerged - this time, however, not on the Sacred Rock. The architectural competition was held in 2000, which led to the selection of the proposal by Bernard Tschumi and his Greek collaborator Michael Photiades. The new Acropolis Museum was constructed on the south side of the Acropolis at a distance of 300 metres from its monuments. The Museum’s foundations were completed on the 30th of January 2004 and its opening took place on the 20th of June 2009.

 

The Museum operates seperately from the Acropolis site and requires a seperate ticket. Information about hours, exhibits, special tours, and tickets can be found here.

 

Acropolis and Slopes

The Acropolis rock, with its characteristic trapezoidal shape, dominates the city of Athens, at an altitude of 157m. above the sea-level and at a distance of 4,70kms from the coast of Attica. In a naturally fortified and inaccessible site, the hill oversees the Attic plain to the sea.
The archaeological site of the Acropolis and its Slopes is bordered at its southern part by the pedestrian of Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, at the east and north by the neighborhoods of Anaphiotika and Plaka, the Archaeological site of the Areopagos hill and the Ancient Agora [Thrasyllou, Stratonos and Theoria streets] and at the west by the Odeion of Herodes Atticus. The main entrance of the archaeological site is at the West Slope, close to Theorias street. The South Slope of the Acropolis, at the junction of Thrasyllou str. and the pedestrian Dionysiou Areoparitou, also forms not only a main but an alternative entrance to the archaeological site, nearby to the Acropolis Museum.

 

Timed entry tickets are required for all visitors. Entry is only possible during the selected time slot. The ticket is valid from 15 min. before to 15 min. after the selected time slot. Visitors are advised to arrive 30 minutes before their selected timed entry slot.

There is a combined ticket available for €30, which includes Acropolis of Athens, Ancient Agora of Athens Museum, Ancient Agora of Athens- Areios Pagos, Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos, Hadrian's Library, Kerameikos, Lykeion Archaeological Site, North slope of the Acropolis, Olympieio, Roman Agora of Athens, South Slope of Acropolis. Regarding the combined ticket, the mandatory selection of the date and time of visit only applies to the Acropolis & Slopes. Within 5 days you can visit the rest of the Archaeological Sites.

 

Information about hours, tickets, and other sites can be found here.

 

Ancient Agora

The Agora was the center of Athenian democracy, where the city's most important political functions were exercised and where both Pericles and Socrates once walked. The ruins of the ancient Agora, the exceptionally well-preserved temple of Hephaistos and the restored Stoa of Attalos may be visited in the shadow of the Acropolis at a site characterized by particular natural beauty.

 

Roman Agora

The Roman Agora was built in the 1st c. BC with gifts from Julius Caesar and Augustus to house Athens' commercial activities. The Agora is bordered by the imposing Gate of Athena Archegetis, while the Clock of Kyrrestos with relief figures of the eight winds and the Fethiye Mosque stand at its corners.

 

Hadrian's Library

The magnificent building of the Library was built during the third visit of Emperor Hadrian in Athens during 131-132 A.D. The Library was a rectangular peristyle structure with interior courtyard [122X82m.] with four stoas one on each side. It had only one entrance through a monumental gateway, propylon on its western side, with four Corinthian order columns of Phrygian marble. Alongside the propylon on each side a marble wall was erected with seven columns of Corinthian order from Karystian marble. According to Pausanias travelogues the Library had on the interior a large oblong cinstern, one hundred columns of phrygian marble on each stoa and rooms decorated with alabaster roofs and paintings. In the central two-storey building of the eastern side, inside niches and wooden cupboards the books and papyrus was kept while on each corner of the same side a small lecture halls [auditoria] was built.

The form and the uses of the place which served as a place of art exhibition, lecture and also for the worship of the emperor and as a place of safekeeping the archive of the city allows us to interpete it as a multifunctional building or as imperial forum according to the well known other forum buildings of Rome.

 

Muesem of modern greek culture

The Museum of Modern Greek Culture is located in Monastiraki, in the heart of the historical center of Athens, in the city block surrounded by the streets of Adrianou – Areos – Kladou – Vrysakiou, as well as in the Tzisdarakis Mosque. The museum is a neighbourhood of modern Athens with buildings dating from the 18th to the 20th century, which along with the museum objects they contain, form a peculiar monumental and cultural landscape in the wider urban plan.
The permanent exhibition presents aspects of the modern greek culture from the 19th century until today, through artefacts of the country's tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

 

Temple of Olympian zeus

The construction of the temple of Olympian Zeus, one of the largest temples in the ancient world, was launched possibly around 515 BC, but it was completed by Hadrian in 131/132 ADThe Hadrianic temple, built of Pentelic marble in the Corinthian order, consisted of two rows of twenty columns on the long sides and three rows of eight columns across the front and rear; hence, a total of one hundred and four columns comprised the peristasis. The dereliction of the temple began around the 5th century AD. Today only fifteen columns stand tall, one having collapsed during a storm in 1852.To the northern part of the archaeological site are preserved the remains of a gate of the Themistoclean Wall [479/8 BC], of dwellings [5th/4th BC- 2nd c. AD] and of a Roman Balneum [bathhouse].

 

National Botanical gardens & zappeion

The National Garden, called the Royal Garden until 1974, is a public park of 15.5 hectares (38 acres) in the center of the Greek capital, Athens. It is located between the districts of Kolonaki and Pangrati, directly behind the Greek Parliament building (The Old Palace) and continues to the South to the area where the Zappeion is located, across from the Panathenaiko or Kalimarmaro Olympic Stadium of the 1896 Olympic Games. The Garden also encloses some ancient ruins, column drums and Corinthian capitals of columns, mosaics, and other features. On the Southeast side are the busts of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of Greece, and of the Philhellene Jean-Gabriel Eynard. On the South side are the busts of the celebrated Greek poets Dionysios Solomos, author of the Greek National Hymn, and Aristotelis Valaoritis.

 

Zappeion Hall was constructed in the late 19th century to support the revival of the Olympic Games. It was used as the Fencing Hall in the 1896 Summer Olympics and as the Olympic Village for the 1906 Intercalated Games. In 1938, the Athens Radio Station, the country's first national broadcaster, began operating in the premises. Today, Zappeion serves as a conference and exhibition space and often has art exhibitions during the summer.

 

Panathenaic stadium

The Panathenaic Stadium or Kallimarmaro [kaliˈmarmaro], lit. 'beautiful marble' is a multi-purpose stadium in Athens, Greece. One of the main historic attractions of Athens, it is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble.

A stadium was built on the site of a simple racecourse by the Athenian statesman Lykourgos (Lycurgus) c. 400 BC, primarily for the Panathenaic Games. It was rebuilt in marble by Herodes Atticus, an Athenian Roman senator, by 144 AD it had a capacity of 50,000 seats. After the rise of Christianity in the 4th century it was largely abandoned. The stadium was excavated in 1869 and hosted the Zappas Olympics in 1870 and 1875. After being refurbished, it hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the first modern Olympics in 1896 and was the venue for 4 of the 9 contested sports. It was used for various purposes in the 20th century and was once again used as an Olympic venue in 2004. It is the finishing point for the annual Athens Classic Marathon. It is also the last venue in Greece from where the Olympic flame handover ceremony to the host nation takes place.

 

Hours and ticket information can be found here.

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