Phil Brown - Travel Stories
Greece is the word
Athens is more than a gateway to the Greek islands – it’s a must-visit destination.
From the Roof Garden restaurant at the Electra Metropolis Athens we breakfast each morning watching sunlight play upon the Acropolis.
It might look otherworldly but by 8.30am it is crawling with visitors. On our recent visits to Athens, 12 months apart, we joined the throng. And each morning and evening we enjoyed the vision splendid from the rooftop of our digs.
It is a view you never get tired of and one the Greek capital preserves by law because the Acropolis of Athens is the heart and soul of this amazing city.
For decades, zoning regulations dictated no building in central Athens could obstruct the view of the Parthenon, the ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, which is the crowning glory of this citadel recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has stood as a symbol of art, faith, and military defence for more than 3300 years. We first visited Athens en route to London in 2025, fell in love with the city, returning in May this year. Spring is the perfect time to visit before the heat and crowds descend.
On both occasions we stayed at the Electra Metropolis Athens, a 216-room, five-star hotel just minutes from the central Syntagma Square. Just across the road is the Greek Parliament where you can catch the Changing of the Guard - a free, hourly ceremony performed by the Evzones (the elite Presidential Guard) at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Athens spreads out in all directions from the Acropolis, which has survived wars, earthquakes, and a bit of looting by a certain British aristocrat. The removal of sculptures from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin, which you can now see at the British Museum in London, is still a sore point in Greece.
Start your stay in Athens with a visit to the Acropolis but make sure you wear solid walking shoes and book an early tour because it gets hot later and busy with more than four million visitors each year. We started our two-hour tour with Athens Walks at 8am. Follow that with a visit to the Acropolis Museum, which is magnificent, and there you can see the Parthenon Marbles Lord Elgin left behind.
The cultural heritage of Athens has been a tourist drawcard for a couple of millennia. Pausanias, a Greek living under the Roman Empire in the second century, provided the most detailed surviving account of ancient Athens (there are two volumes of his work published by Penguin Classics) writing extensively about the city's topography, chronicling its temples, monuments and artworks.
He was promoting it as a tourist destination even then. If you're an ancient history buff, Athens is heaven. Our hotel was within walking distance of the major archaeological attractions including the Ancient Agora, a cradle of democracy, where the likes of Socrates, Aristotle and even St Paul held forth in this marketplace below the Acropolis.
Here you will also find the Temple of Hephaestus, the best-preserved classical temple in Greece. There is also a Roman Forum nearby and Hadrian's Arch (erected in 131 CE) on Leoforos Vasilisis Amalias, one of the city's busiest avenues, reminds us that Athens was once part of the Roman Empire. The Emperor Hadrian loved Athens, embellishing it with temples and other buildings and infrastructure.
The ancient city is everywhere, even in the basement of our hotel, where there is a preserved section of the Themistoclean Wall, a historic defensive wall built around the ancient city of Athens in 479BC.
You can easily spend a week poking around the remnants of Ancient Athens and why not? It's a relaxing city even if the traffic can be chaotic. Its citizens are friendly, it's easy to get around using public transport or taxis but if you stay around major tourist areas like Plaka and Monastiraki you can walk everywhere.
Some use Athens merely as a staging point for the Greek islands but stay awhile and discover its charms. Visiting the museums alone could take a week. As well as the Acropolis Museum put the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture on your list. It's a favourite and next door is the upscale suburb of Kolonaki crowned by Lycabettus Hill, Athens highest point.
Take the funicular railway to the top for the most amazing views. (Philopappos Hill and Areopagus Hill are the other two notable high points, and both offer stunning views of the Acropolis.)
There are numerous other museums to visit including the mother ship, the National Archaeological Museum with its Cycladic collection dating back 5000 years and the extraordinary Mycenaean Collection. That includes the famous solid gold Mask of Agamemnon, famous as the King of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks at Troy - according to Homer at least.
Staying centrally, everything is a stroll away and in the streets around the Electra Metropolis Athens there are hipster vinyl shops, jewellery stores, cool cafes and restaurants (from Greek to Italian and Japanese) and there is a Maria Callas Museum just across the road from our hotel on Mitropoleos St for opera fans.
Nearby Ermou St is the main shopping mall, but the more interesting shops are in the side streets or, if you are a serious shopper try the Attica Department Store (it's like David Jones on steroids). It's flanked by swish cafes where well-heeled Athenians hang out with a lot of cigar smoking going on.
Wander around Plaka at dusk and you'll find a plethora of eateries and tourist gift shops, with glimpses of the Acropolis, which disgorges its last tourists as night falls to the sound of a bouzouki player busking nearby. Athens. Love it.
Story Phil Brown - Qweekend, The Courier-Mail, October 3-4, 2026
