Our meeting point will be the entrance of the Acropolis Museum, located on the pedestrian street of Dionisíu Aeropayitu. From there we will start our first walking tour. After leaving Macriyani Street on the right hand side, full of cafes, restaurants, souvenir stores and souvenir stores, and on the left hand side Vironos Street, which leads to the Plaka district, we arrive at the monument dedicated to the Greek actress and politician Melina Mercuri.
We cross Amaliah Avenue and we find ourselves in front of Hadrian’s Arch, which separated the old Greek city from the new Roman city and was dedicated to the Roman emperor of the same name; we pass by the Temple of Olympian Zeus, a Corinthian-style sanctuary of whose 104 columns are preserved just 15 plus a fall, and we continue to the Panathenaic Stadium, where the first Olympic Games of the modern era were held in 1896.
We drive up the elegant Irodu Atticu Street (the street of Herodes Atticus), to see the Presidential Palace, the official residence of the President of the Republic of Greece that formerly served as the Royal Palace, the changing of the guard performed by the evsons (presidential guards) and the Maximu Palace, the official residence of the Greek Prime Minister. We continue along Irodu Aticu Street, leaving the National Park on our left, until we reach Vasilisis Sofίas Avenue. Going down to the left we pass in front of the flower shops below the Parliament and arrive at the main square Syntagma, where we will stop to see the Hellenic Parliament, a neoclassical building, former Royal Palace of Otto I (first king of Greece), which since 1935 became the Parliament.
At the foot of the Parliament we will see the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, guarded by the evsons, dressed in traditional dress (skirt of 400 pleats and wooden clogs and black tassel). Every hour on the hour, the ceremony of the changing of the guard takes place.
Next we pass Panepistimíu Street, the University Street, lined with beautiful neoclassical buildings, including the Grande Bretagne Hotel, the Numismatic Museum, originally the home of the German archaeologist Schliemann, who conducted the excavations of Troy and Mycenae, the Catholic Cathedral and later the trilogy of neoclassical buildings that are the University, the Academy of Letters and Arts and the National Library.
This walk concentrates the most important monuments of both ancient and contemporary Athens and allows us to take the pulse of the city center.
