Athens is a living, breathing capital that is constantly shifting between a profound history that has left many signs of its old-world charm and a paradoxical ultra-modern energy in the space of a single street. Easily explored on foot, the city’s central neighborhoods are a pleasure to enjoy one by one or even all within the same day.
Here we present Kolonaki, Pangrati, and Syntagma, three central neighborhoods that one can combine in a day’s walk or spend countless hours connecting with on separate days, and the five key things to see and do when in each. From hidden hilltop cafés to marble-clad stadiums, world-class art museums, and buzzy community squares, we introduce you to the places where Athens can be experienced as it is by locals.
Whether you’re after cultural enrichment, people watching, shopping or nature walks, you’ll find the best handful of things to see in each neighborhood via this guide.
Kolonaki
5 Things Not to Miss
Excellent Museums
Kolonaki is widely known for its high-end boutiques, restaurants and cafes, as well as its scenic streets and beautiful architecture. Some of Athens’ most fascinating museums are tucked within its neoclassical facades. The Museum of Cycladic Art houses temporary exhibitions as well as the country’s most impressive collections of the characteristic minimalist marble figurines that inspired Picasso, while the Benaki Museum stitches together Greece’s many layers, from Byzantine relics and Ottoman silks to modernist paintings and classical statues. The Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology showcases ancient ingenuity with inventions such as Archimedes’ war machines and the world’s first robot. The Museum of the History of Greek Costume explores Greece’s sartorial past through more than 25,000 pieces, including regional costumes, intricate traditional jewelry, and porcelain dolls dressed in traditional attire. Established in 1988 under the Lyceum Club of Greek Women, it preserves textiles and stories of regional identities, social customs, and artistic expression woven into each thread.
Kolonaki Square
Kolonaki Square is a lively stage where the top players in Athenian society gather to see and be seen, and indeed the cafés circling the square have seen everything, from clandestine political meetings to love affairs over aromatic cigars. From the early morning, tables at places like DaCapo cafe are filled for quick or leisurely meet-ups of sunlit chatter over freddo cappuccinos and pastries. In the evenings and until the late hours, particularly from Friday until Sunday, locals and visitors glitz up and sip fine wines over a plate of carpaccio at Lykovrissi restaurant-bar or Kolonaki Tops. Sitting here, you’re sure to feel the neighborhood’s exclusive vibes, so find a seat, order something delectable, and take in the parade of the breezily stylish.
Patriarchou Ioakeim
The area’s main shopping strip, Patriarchou Ioakeim street is where polished storefronts change as quickly as the passing crowds. High-end boutiques sit next to niche concept stores, luring passers-by in with everything from designer clothing and handmade jewelry to luxury lingerie, artisanal chocolates, and rare books. One moment, you’re admiring beautiful footwear, the next, you’re tasting sugar-free gourmet delicacies or rare organic produce in a deli as polished as a jewelry store. Perfect for passing the time.
Lycabettus Hill
Athens’ highest point comes at a price – your physical stamina. The climb up Lycabettus Hill is a steep one, but the payoff is staggering: a panorama that stretches from the Parthenon to the sea of Piraeus. If you’re not up for the trek, a cable car on Aristippou street zips you up through the pines. At the top, you’ll reach St. George’s chapel, with even more superb spectacular views, especially glorious at dawn and twilight, when the city lights go on. Many enjoy the hill for hearty jogs, dog walking and canoodling among lush greenery that is well maintained by the City of Athens. You might even spot a fox!
Dexameni Square
A few steps from the designer boutiques and below the St George hotel, Dexameni Square is an entirely different Kolonaki – unpolished, unhurried, and soaked in history. Built around a Roman-era cistern, it has been a haunt of poets, philosophers, and late-night dreamers for over a century, and on sunny days is thronging with groups of friends enjoying frosty beer or icy tsipouro. In summer, crowds also queue up to watch movies at the open-air cinema here, which has two screenings per night, while kids play in the playground or kick a ball around outside of it until dark.
Pangrati
5 Things Not to Miss
The Goulandris Museum
In an unassuming corner of Pangrati, beneath an imposing church, the Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art presents one of Greece’s most astonishing art collections. Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet – they’re all here, thanks to the lifelong curation of the Goulandris family, who own several other important museums in Athens and on Andros in the Cyclades. The museum’s sleek design contrasts with the intimate nature of the collection, as if you’ve stumbled into a billionaire’s private gallery rather than a public institution. There is a restaurant and cafe, that periodically organizes wonderful events like olive oil tastings or other such happenings that connect viewers with both art and gastronomic culture at once.
The Panathenaic Stadium
The Panathenaic Stadium, where the modern Olympics were reborn, is steeped in history. Originally built in 330 BCE, it hosted the first modern Olympics in 1896, setting the stage for the Games as we know them. Run a lap on its legendary track (at a cost, and only during a brief morning window), sit where ancient spectators once cheered, and imagine the roar of 50,000 people filling this all-marble masterpiece.
The Ancient Hills
While most visitors flock to Filopappou hill near the Acropolis and Lycabettus hill near Kolonaki and Exarcheia, Pangrati lovers can hike up the lush and scenic Profitis Ilias and Ardittos hills, which offer their own kind of magic. These ancient places are where locals jog, sip their morning coffee with a view, or sneak in a romantic moment under the cypress trees. At sunset, the Acropolis, seen from afar, glows above with a golden light.
The Squares
Increasingly popular and social over the last decade, yet still very much a residential neighborhood, Pangrati has two central squares that define its local community’s lifestyle. Varnava Square is where locals start their night with craft beers and gourmet bites, as kids play, while Proskopon Square is for the late-night crowd, hopping between bistros and smoky jazz bars. Between the two, there are several great spots to discover for food and drinks.
The First Cemetery
Sound a little eerie as a place to visit? Not when you consider that the First Cemetery of Athens is very much like an open-air sculpture gallery, a hushed oasis where some of Greece’s greatest minds were laid to rest. Marble angels lean mournfully over tombs, while 19th-century crypts are intricate and evocative works of art in their own right. Walking through, you’re tracing the city’s past through the lives of its poets, politicians, and revolutionaries, who lie here, as do members of some of the city’s most prominent families.
Syntagma
5 Things Not to Miss
The Changing of the Guard
The Evzones, Greece’s elite ceremonial guards, stand motionless in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – until, suddenly, they move in slow, perfect synchronization like clockwork toys. Inspired by Greece’s freedom fighters in the 1821 War of Independence, their uniforms include pom-pom-tipped tsarouhi shoes weighing three kilograms each and skirts that when unwrapped are four meters long. The changing of the guard is a hypnotic, precise ritual that never ceases to inspire or impress tourists and Athenians alike, reflecting the country’s military discipline and rich history.
The Athenian Trilogy
Athens may be known for ancient ruins, but the Athenian Trilogy proves the city can do neoclassicism just as well. The National Library, the University of Athens, and the Academy of Athens stand on Panepistimiou street a few minutes’ walk from Syntagma square like an architectural fantasy from another century, all tall columns that soar to the sky, perfect symmetry, and glittering grandeur. The best time to visit is the late afternoon, when the marble turns soft pink under the setting sun, or at night, when you can connect to the majestic statues here in privacy.
Ermou Street
Athens’ busiest pedestrian street is the city’s most well known shopping hub, aside from the Monastiraki flea market. A mix of high-street fashion brands and Greek stores and cafes draw in the crowds, and towards Monastiraki, a sunken Byzantine church and crumbling neoclassical buildings remind you of the city’s layered past. Make sure to step into Kapnikarea, a tiny 11th-century church stubbornly standing in the middle of the chaos, as if holding its ground against time itself, to find a moment of silence as you light a candle.
Zappeion Hall & National Garden
Behind the government buildings and political commotion, Zappeion Hall and the National Garden offer a serene retreat. Once used for Olympic events, Zappeion is a masterpiece of classical architecture, while the garden, originally commissioned by Queen Amalia of Greece, is a maze of hidden statues, ponds that swans and ducks swim in, refreshingly shaded walkways, goats, and the occasional peacock strutting like it owns the place. This is where a lot of Athenians’ childhood memories of days out with their grandparents were created, and thankfully the place has hardly changed over the decades, remaining an old fashioned and tranquil escape just steps from all the action on Constitution Square.
Mitropoleos Street
Branching off from Syntagma Square, Mitropoleos Street, named after the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens that majestically stands half-way down it, this street is where some of Athens’ most popular, old-school food stops draw in the hungry crowds. Noisy tables at classic restaurants like Savvas, Bairaktaris and O Thanassis filled with mouthwatering plates of kebab, souvlaki, Greek salad and fries, clog the pedestrian street as it reaches toward Monastiraki square, while further up are more high-end dining spots and ice cream shops like Le Greche and Zuccherino.
