Athens

Temples raised in the fifth century before our era still hold the rock. There is no shade at the top, so in summer people arrive for the eight o'clock opening.

A glass floor leaves the excavated street visible right under your feet. The top gallery is aligned with the temple itself, so the sculptures stand at the angle they once did.

An old quarter on the north slope where stairways take the place of streets. Visitors crowd it, though the Anafiotika corner higher up stays as quiet as an island village.

The market ground Socrates walked, with one reconstructed colonnade serving as the museum. Trees stand across the site, which makes it cooler than the rock above.

A hill of 277m reached by funicular or by a path through the pines. The Acropolis and the sea line up from the top, which packs it out around sunset.

Mycenaean gold masks and bronze figures follow one another in date order. There are enough rooms that three hours are needed, so most people split it by floor.

Built entirely in marble, and the first modern Olympics of 1896 were held here. You can walk the track yourself, and nobody stops you standing on the podium.

Lane after lane of junk, clothes and old records. Sunday morning brings out the most stalls, and the first price named is not the price.

Of 104 columns only fifteen still stand, and one lies where a storm dropped it. The fallen one shows in section how the drums were stacked to build it.

The rock terrace where the citizen assembly met, and no ticket is taken at the way in. It lies west of the Acropolis, which puts the temple front on from here.

A museum opened in 1930 around the collection of Antonis Benakis, housed in a mansion across from the National Garden. Each floor moves the story on, from prehistoric pottery up to modern costume. Its rooftop cafe gazes over the garden's treetops.

Opened in 1986 to show the Goulandris family's Cycladic marble figures. The flat, arms-folded figures with only a nose carved on the face date from the third millennium BC. A glass corridor joins the Stathatos Mansion next door, included in the same entry.

Queen Amalia laid it out in the 1840s as the palace's back garden, and it is now open to all. Dense trees shade the paths even at a summer noon, and ducks and turtles live in the ponds. Walking from Syntagma to the Acropolis, cutting through here is cooler.

Kilted Evzones guard the Unknown Soldier's memorial before Parliament and change on every hour. Their slow, high-legged step makes each change last several minutes. On Sunday at 11am a band joins a fuller ceremony that draws the biggest crowd of the week.

The potters' quarter and the cemetery outside the walls, where the Sacred Way to Eleusis and the Dipylon Gate can still be traced. Carved marble grave stones fill the small museum beside it. Tour groups rarely come, and tortoises amble through the grass.

An octagonal marble tower in the Roman Agora, built by Andronikos of Kyrrhos during the 1st century BC. Each of its eight faces carries the winged god of the wind from that direction. Inside, channels that drove a water clock are still cut in the floor.

The site of the library Emperor Hadrian built in AD 132, right beside Monastiraki station. The row of Corinthian columns on its west front stands at the roadside, visible without a ticket. Inside, its walls overlap the floors of churches later built there.

A hill crowned by the funerary monument of Philopappos, a Roman noble of the early second century. Paths laid by the architect Pikionis in the 1950s climb it, and from here the Acropolis faces you head-on. At sunset it gets a fraction of the Lycabettus crowd.

A rock outcrop just below the Acropolis entrance on the northwest, seat of an ancient court and where the Apostle Paul preached. A bronze plaque at its foot carries the sermon. Countless feet have polished the stone, and smooth soles slide on it.

Columns of a mid fifth century BC temple to Poseidon stand on the clifftop at a cape about 70km south of Athens. Lord Byron's carved name survives on one of them. Buses run down the coast road, so most visitors make it a half day timed for sunset.

Renzo Piano's building housing the National Library and National Opera together. The park and long canal are free, and the top viewing level takes in the sea and the Acropolis together. It lies south of the centre at Faliro, reached by tram or bus.

Housed in the Villa Ilissia, built in the 1840s for the Duchess of Plaisance. Icons, mosaics and fragments of church frescoes run in date order. Most galleries lie underground beneath the courtyard, so it is much larger than it looks from outside.

The central market on Athinas Street, opened in 1886, with meat and fish halls under one roof. Across the street run stalls of vegetables, olives and spices. It closes on Sundays, and the fish hall floor is always wet from hosing down.

An 11th-century Byzantine church sits marooned halfway along Ermou, the shopping street. It nearly came down when the street was cut, but was kept, so the road splits around it. Covered shoulders and knees are expected inside.

A lake beneath a rock cliff on Athens' southern coast, fed from underground sources and brackish with seawater. The water stays mild even in winter, so some swim all year. Small fish swarm the feet to nibble at skin, and entry is charged.

A monastery founded around the 11th century among pines where Mount Hymettus begins to rise. Frescoes cover the walls of its cross-shaped church, and the courtyard tap runs from an old water source. A city bus gets close, yet the woods shut out the traffic.