Plaka, Anafiotika and Monastiraki on foot: a two-hour route, and what is free along it

When Athens became the capital of the new Greek kingdom in 1834, it was a small town, and it needed a palace. Builders were brought in from the islands, among them stonemasons from Anafi, a speck of land east of Santorini. They needed somewhere to live, and land in the growing capital was already dear.

So they built on the one slope nobody was meant to build on: the rock directly under the Acropolis. The story told in Athens is that they relied on an old custom, by which a house roofed between sunset and sunrise could not be pulled down. What they put up looks like what they had left: white cubes, flat roofs, lanes one person wide. A few dozen houses survive. The quarter is called Anafiotika, little Anafi, and it is the best reason to walk through the old town below the rock instead of taking the metro past it.

The route in brief

The walk runs from Syntagma Square to Monastiraki Square, around the east and north sides of the Acropolis. It is about three kilometres and takes two hours with stops, more if you go into the ticketed sites. Most of it is on streets closed to traffic. The one climb is the stepped lanes up to Anafiotika, which are uneven and narrow: wear shoes that grip, and do not bring a pushchair. In summer, start before nine or after five.

Stop by stop

1. Syntagma Square

The palace those masons worked on is the plain building at the top of the square, now the Greek Parliament. In front of it two soldiers of the presidential guard, the Evzones, stand at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They change on the hour, with a fuller ceremony on Sunday mornings. Watching is free.

2. The cathedral and the church beside it

Walk down Mitropoleos Street to the Metropolitan Cathedral, finished in 1862. The building to look at is the small one in its shadow: the Little Metropolis, a medieval church whose walls are a collage of older carved stones, ancient and Byzantine, among them a frieze showing the months of the year.

3. The Monument of Lysicrates

Turn south into Plaka along Adrianou and Kydathineon streets, to a small round monument in a square. Lysicrates paid for a chorus that won the theatre contest of 334 BC, and put this up to carry his bronze prize. Its columns are among the oldest Corinthian columns on the outside of any building. It later stood inside a Capuchin monastery, where Lord Byron lodged in 1810 and 1811.

The Monument of Lysicrates in its square in Plaka. Photo: George E. Koronaios, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

4. Anafiotika

From the monument, go uphill towards the rock until the paving turns to whitewashed steps. There are no signs and no single path. Keep the cliff above you on your left and you come out on the north side, with the whole city below and Mount Lycabettus opposite. People live here: keep your voice down and stay out of the yards.

A lane in Anafiotika: whitewash, bougainvillea, room for one person. Photo: Zde, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

5. The Roman Agora and the Tower of the Winds

The lanes drop you beside a fenced field of columns: the market the Romans built when the old agora had filled with monuments. At its edge stands an eight-sided marble tower, each face carved with the wind that blows from that direction. Andronikos of Kyrrhos built it more than two thousand years ago as a public clock, with sundials outside and a water clock within. You see nearly all of it from the street.

The top of the Tower of the Winds. Each face carries the wind that blows from its side. Photo: Jakub Hałun, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

6. Hadrian's Library and Monastiraki

Two streets north, a row of tall Corinthian columns is the front wall of the library the emperor Hadrian gave Athens in AD 132. It faces Monastiraki Square: a small Byzantine church set below the level of the paving, an 18th century mosque, the metro, the street of the flea market, and the Acropolis above the rooftops.

Monastiraki Square, with the small church of the Pantanassa in the middle. Photo: Radosław Botev, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 PL.

What is free and what needs a ticket

Free: everything on the street. The guard, both churches, the Monument of Lysicrates, Anafiotika, the squares, and a good view of the Tower of the Winds and of Hadrian's Library through their railings.

Ticketed: going inside the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library, each with its own ticket, and the small museums of Plaka. An Acropolis ticket is for the rock and its slopes. If you plan to add the Ancient Agora, five minutes west of Monastiraki, that is a separate ticket again.

Audio walks: what they are

Our partner sells this kind of walk as a self-guided audio tour. You pay once, download it in the partner's app, and your phone tells the stories at each stop, with a map. Nobody meets you. You start when you like and pause for coffee when you like. Bring earphones.

• City walks. One runs from Syntagma to Monastiraki through Plaka and Anafiotika in about an hour and a half, close to the route above. Others are longer and reach the hills west of the Acropolis. None includes entry to anything.
• A walk with an Acropolis ticket. One product pairs a city walk with an entry ticket to the Acropolis. It is the only one here that gets you through a gate.
• A food walk. An hour around Monastiraki and Plaka on what Athenians eat and where. It is commentary: what you eat is on your own bill.

Some walks have the Acropolis in their title and do not include its ticket. Read the list of what is included before you pay.

These are the audio walks our partner sells in the centre of Athens, with today's prices:

• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Athens: Acropolis & City Charms Audio Tour 3 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom40 zł
• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Athens: Acropolis Ticket & City Walk Audio Tour 2.5 – 3 hours4.0 (270) Book on WeGoTripfrom249 zł
• on WeGoTrip Walking Tours Athens: Self-Guided Audio Walk Through the Cradle of Democracy 2.5 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom31 zł
• on WeGoTrip History & Heritage Athens: Audio Tour of Ancient Pathways 1.5 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom40 zł
• on WeGoTrip Cultural Tours Athens: Culinary Delights Audio Tour 1 hours Book on WeGoTripfrom44 zł

Sold and delivered by WeGoTrip. You book on their site at their price; Viaqui may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

When to walk it

Early morning belongs to the residents and the cats: the lanes of Anafiotika are empty and the light on the white walls is soft. By eleven the tour groups have come down from the Acropolis into Plaka. Late afternoon is the second good window, and the route then ends in Monastiraki as the square fills for the evening. At midday in July and August the climb is hard work, and there is no water on the slope.

From here

Monastiraki is a junction: one metro line runs to the port of Piraeus, another to the airport. The flea market street starts at the corner of the square, and the Ancient Agora is five minutes beyond it. For a longer look at the Tower of the Winds, go back in the morning when the Roman Agora is quiet. For the rest of Athens, open the trip planner for Greece.

Cover photo: Jakub Hałun, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.