Antiquity is not in the museums here; it is on the skyline. And around it, one of Europe's most energetic young art scenes.
Bernard Tschumi's museum at the foot of the rock, built over an excavated neighbourhood. The Parthenon frieze is displayed in a glass gallery aligned with the temple.
The greatest collection of ancient Greek art in the world: Mycenaean gold, the Antikythera mechanism, and bronzes pulled from the sea.
Small marble figures from the Cycladic islands, 3200–2000 BC, that look as if they were made in 1930. Modigliani and Brancusi looked hard at them.
Greek culture from prehistory to the 20th century in a family mansion, plus a separate building on Pireos Street for contemporary shows.
Greece's contemporary art museum, in the former Fix brewery on Syngrou Avenue.
Greek painting from the post-Byzantine era to the present, in a building reopened in 2021 after a long expansion. Two El Grecos.
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
Yannoulis Chalepas's marble tomb of a young woman, made in 1878 just before he broke down. The cemetery is a sculpture park of 19th-century Athens.
The ancient potters' quarter and cemetery, with grave reliefs still lining the road to the sea. Quiet, green, full of tortoises.
An octagonal marble clock tower of the 1st century BC, each side carved with one of the eight winds.
A tiny village of whitewashed houses built in the 19th century by builders from the island of Anafi, clinging to the north slope of the rock.
Between 1954 and 1957 the architect Dimitris Pikionis laid the paths up to the Acropolis and Philopappou Hill. He used marble fragments from demolished neoclassical houses, set like a mosaic of broken stone, with a small church and pavilion on the way.
The 1963 hotel façade carries huge incised drawings by the painter Yannis Moralis, cut into the marble: the largest artwork in the city that nobody looks at.
Heinrich Schliemann's palace, built by Ernst Ziller, now the Numismatic Museum. It has painted Pompeian ceilings, a mosaic floor full of Trojan finds and a garden café.
Two hours by ferry: no cars, and the DESTE Foundation's summer show in the old slaughterhouse.
The sanctuary and the Charioteer of Delphi, about two and a half hours by road.
The Acropolis at opening → the Acropolis Museum → lunch in Koukaki → walk through Anafiotika to the Tower of the Winds → the Museum of Cycladic Art → sunset from Lycabettus.