An ancient city that looms large in history and legend, Athens has its main sights clustered in one area with tiny central neighborhoods.
It's possible to walk from a museum in Kolonaki in the east to a nightclub in Gazi – a neighborhood long considered to be on the western "fringe" – in a brisk half-hour. In practice, though, each district you pass through is so interesting, you might easily spend a day making your way across town.
The big asset to Athens's density is more leeway in your choice of places to stay: pick where you want to end up at night without an hour-long slog in the morning to see the sights. And although central Athens teems with unhosted short-term rentals, they have skewed the economy against Athenians. For actual "living like a local" and the hospitality Greeks are famous for, rent a room in a shared apartment — or stay in a good old hotel. Find the area right for you with this guide to Athens' best neighborhoods.
If your primary mission is beating the tour groups to the Acropolis, book a hotel in Makrygianni, near the site's east entrance and the Acropolis Museum. Contrary to expectations, this area isn't all tourist tat, but a nice mix of old-school residential, extremely upmarket residential (big-money flex: walking your tiny dog on Dionysiou Areopagitou at sunset) and hotels at all price points.
The farther you walk from the Acropolis, the more you'll find nice cafes and restaurants with no claim to fame other than being some neighborhood denizens' regular joint.
Walk a bit farther south, and you reach Koukaki, which often tops lists of quintessential Athens neighborhoods. And deservedly so, especially on the pedestrian strip of Olimpiou, where bar-cafes like Bel Rey burst with casual kefi (atmosphere) on a summer night. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, in the old Fix brewery, lends the area style points.
In front of the parliament and the pompom-footed soldiers guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the broad square of Plateia Syntagmatos is the unofficial center of the city: a key landmark that draws a big mix of people in the evenings.
Syntagma is one point in the emporiko trigono (commercial triangle) as the central business district is known. The other two points of the triangle are Omonia (north) and Monastiraki (west). Even though many of the buildings are' 60s-era concrete, centuries-old churches pop up in odd spots, and old-style micro-business districts persist, so you can buy, say, all your gardening supplies in one block. And after the offices, shops and central market close, people flock to some fabulously designed drinking holes with renowned bartenders – look especially on and around Kolokotroni, which leads into the adjoining neighborhood of Psyrri.
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