Location: Plaka
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Things to do in Athens, Attica: The Best Historic Sites
Once known for smog, traffic and tacky architecture, Athens is a city reformed thanks to fortunes brought by the 2004 Summer Olympics. Spotless parks and streets, an ultra-modern subway, new freeways, an accessible airport and all signs in perfect English make the city easily negotiable. Meriting more than a stopover en route to the islands, sophisticated Athens sites include many pillars of Western history, from the Acropolis to the Temple of Olympian Zeus, as well as treasures in the National Archaeological Museum.
Restaurants in Athens
1. Tower of the Winds
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 343 reviews
A graceful stone tower dating back to the first century AD.
Reviewed By permia
It makes for a fabulous sight within the atmospheric centre of the Roman city of antiquity. Ingeniously constructed as a weather vane and water clock around the end of the 2nd century BCE, one of its most arresting features is the sequence of friezes on each octagonal side depicting the eight winds of Greek mythology. Each is shown personified as in their legends. Apeliotes is portrayed as a young man bearing fruit and grain. Lips holds the ornament of a ship's stern as he steers a swift voyage. Stepping inside is to gaze at a marvellous ceiling in stone with triangular lengths culminating in the dome. On the floor is a semblance of the elaborate water clock that was intact until Ottoman times.
2. Roman Agora
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 830 reviews
Reviewed By permia
Passing by the marvellous monumental Gate of Athena Archegetis that was established by contributions from both Augustus and Julius Caesar is to view the impressive expanse of the site. Completed in the last decades BC it served as a market place, in contrast to the Ancient Agora that was a place of political undertakings. Much is well extant including the Agoranomeion that dates from the mid-1st century CE. It is speculated that it may have served as a Basilica for the worship of Emperors. Not far away are the remains of a Basilica, a substantial public building from Hadrian’s reign. It had many functions including the holding of court hearings. A most remarkable edifice is the beautiful Tower of the Winds. Creatively built as a weather vane and water clock, it has fabulous friezes of the eight winds on each octagonal side depicting the eight winds of Greek mythology. These include Apeliotes bearing fruit and grain, Euros Bearded male with a cloak billowing in the wind and Boreas blowing the cold north wind through a large conch shell. From Byzantine times is the grand Fethiye Mosque. It hosts special cultural exhibitions but none was current during our time.
3. Old Temple of Athena
4. Basilica
5. Mansion Benizelou
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 23 reviews
Reviewed By permia
Dating from the 16th century, from which it gets its moniker of oldest house in the city, it is at the centre of the delightful Plaka. Its first residents were the Angelos Benizelos family, aristocrats under the Ottomans. An illuminating exemplar of the architecture of the time it is a window onto life and privilege in thoese early days.
6. Agoranomeion
Overall Ratings
4.0 based on 2 reviews
