The suburbs have covered the barren plain in all directions and the city is packed with lively taverns and bustling shops. 

Dominating the Athenian landscape, the Acropolis is unsurpassed in its beauty, architectural splendor and historic importance. The entrance to the Acropolis is the Propylea (designed by Mnesycles, and constitutes an original architectural composition of great importance), which extends 150 feet adjoining the temple of Athena Nike or Wingless Victory (which was built from 430 to 424-3 BC). The Parthenon is situated on the highest part of the Acropolis and was built between 447 and 437 BC and reflects the values and the objectives of the Athenian State ath the time. It was here that modern democracy began its early foothold.

Long before it became a great city and the birthplace of democracy, the area of Athens must have been a very beautiful place. Otherwise one cannot explain how some of the most important ancient gods dueled to give it their name.

In the end it was Poseidon, the god of the sea and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who reached the final round. Zeus, out of whose head Athena was born, in order to avoid a violent encounter between the two gods, declared that each should make an offer to the new city and its name would go to the god whose offer would be accepted by the citizens.

It must have been quite a sight, with all the Olympian gods sitting on one side and the citizens on the other while Athena and Poseidon stood in the middle, ready for the naming competition. Poseidon, who was Zeus' brother and uncle of Athena, came first and struck the rock of the Acropolis, opening a spring of water. This was interpreted as an indication that Poseidon was offering the new city success in war and at sea.

Then Athena came forward and dropped a seed to the ground. It immediately turned into an olive tree. This was meant to indicate that the goddess was offering the new city the fruits of peace and wisdom, which the citizens accepted and named their city Athens, while the owl, the bird connected with Athena and signified wisdom, became the pet animal of the Athenians.

This is why when money was invented and Athenians adopted as their currency the drachma, they used to have the profile of Athena on the one side and the owl on the other. The Athenian drachma became very popular among the people living along the shores of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Red Sea. In some cases, the drachma remained the official exchange instrument for centuries after Athens ceased to exist as a free city-state. In Yemen, in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, the drachma was the only accepted currency until the establishment of the Moslem religion in the seventh century of our era.

There are a million and one sites and as many islands throughout Greece, however, when in Athens there are a few sites that are important to culture and history as no other.  Below are some of our favorite sites definitely worth seeing.

OLYMPIEION

According to tradition, the establishment of the sanctuary goes back to the time of mythical Deucalion. The site was inhabited in the prehistoric period and the cult of Zeus is attested in early historic times. In ca. 515 B.C., Peisistratos the Younger, began the construction of a monumental temple which was not finished because of the fall of the tyranny in Athens. Much later, in 174 B.C., Antiochos IV Epiphanes, the king of Syria, attempted to continue the erection of the temple, which was finally completed by the Roman emperor Hadrian, in A.D. 124/125. Inside the temple stood a colossal chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue of Zeus.

The temple was excavated in 1889-86 by E. Penrose, and in 1922 by G. Welter. The Greek Archaeological Society conducted excavations in the area around the temple, between 1886 and 1907, and work was resumed by Ioannes Travlos in the 1960's.

Many parts of the circuit wall of the sanctuary have been rebuilt, imitating the ancient masonry. Sections of the ancient wall have been preserved only at the south-east corner and on the north side.

NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF ATHENS

It is the most important archaeological museum in Greece and one of the richest in the world concerning ancient Greek art. Its collections are representative of all the cultures that flourished in Greece.

The construction of the museum begun in 1866 and completed in 1889 with the gradual addition of the west wing in 1874, of the north in 1881, of the south in 1885 and finally of the east wing. The building was erected in a large plot donated by Helen Tositsa, with the financial support of Demetrios and Nicolaos Vernardakis, the Archaeological Society and the Greek state.

TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS

The Temple of Olympian Zeus (Olympeion) was an enormous structure, the largest temple in Greece, exceeding even the Parthenon in size. Work began on this vast edifice in 515 BCE during the reign of the tyrant Peisistratos, who initiated the building work to gain public favor. Although there were several attempts over many years to finish the temple, it was not completed until 132 CE by the Emperor Hadrian. Although begun in the 6th century BC, it was not completed until the reign of the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods it was the largest temple in Greece.

The 104 columns, each 17 meters (56 feet) high, of the temple were made of Pentelic marble. Only 15 of the Corinthian columns remain standing to give a sense of the enormous size of the temple which would have been approximately 96 x 40 meters (315 x 130 feet) in size.

After the construction of the temple of Zeus, the Athenians honored Hadrian by building an arched gateway in the northwest corner of the sanctuary in 131 CE. The arch, also built of Pentelic marble, bears two inscriptions. The one on the side facing the Acropolis (west facade) reads "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus" while the other, on the side facing the sanctuary and the extension of the city by Hadrian, reads "This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus".

ACROPOLIS MUSEUM

The Acropolis Museum, located on the sacred rock, east of the Parthenon, houses some of the most important sculptures of ancient Greek art. It is one of the most important museums in the world. Exhibits include sacred sculptures from the temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis, architectural sculptures of Archaic buildings, parts of the pediments, metopes and frieze of the Parthenon, sculptures from the temple of Athena Nike, as well as the Caryatids from the Erechtheion.

It temporarily houses masterpieces of the ancient Greek civilization, dedicated to the most important of the Athenian sanctuaries, the "temenos" of Athena Parthenos. Preparations for the erection of the New Acropolis Museum have already begun. Many of the unique works of art that ornamented the Acropolis have been stolen and transferred abroad. The worst plundering of the monuments took place in the beginning of the 19th century by Lord Elgin.