Explore Athens In A Weekend With Me | Top Things To Do In Athens | Athens Vlog
whether it is day or night athens is really beautiful athens is the capital of greece and that's not its only claim to fame it is the city of aristotle socrates plato all these names are pretty much everyone on the planet has heard of the city gave the world democracy science art so much of what we know originated from athens so i'm heading there for a weekend and i thought i would show you how to explore the city the best possible way in just three days so come with me i'll show you the best let's go i just landed in athens and went through the immigration it was fairly simple and the airport is actually quite new and nice although it is a bit far from the city center now you can buy a sim card here if you don't have a european one so i would recommend vodafone they do have a stall here i also will do some cash because i'm coming from london and you will need yours here so let's go to the city center and that will take me about an hour 15 minutes on the public transport let's go i've arrived in the city center and this is the syntagma square metro station and i got myself an athena card so this is 10 plus one that gives you access to 11 journeys i think it's fairly decent for the entire weekend if you need more you can always get more for now this is 12 euros so i'm gonna go check out my hotel get some rest and we start exploring the best things in athens on a weekend tomorrow after a delicious greek breakfast i am ready to explore athens this is monastiraki square and this is the heart of tourist athens so this square has everything from all the hustle and bustle there's a cute church here and these are all the bars that you need to go to if you want some good views of um acropolis in the evenings on this side you will see the flea market of athens and this is where all the tourist places start starting from the roman agora so i'll show you two of the most famous ones because the rest of them i'm not sure you can see them from outside there's no point of going inside but you obviously cannot miss the ancient agora as well as acropolis so let's go explore the old side first and then we'll continue further i am in the ancient agora of athens athens has two a roman and an ancient one and agora simply means a marketplace so the other archaeological sites honestly you can just walk around and you can see there's not much left but this place is special for two reasons one is the temple behind me this is the temple of hephaestus and this is actually great because it's probably the most well preserved temple i think is the only one with it the roof still on so definitely worth a visit the other one is a store on the other side which is a replica but you can't really see much from outside so you definitely need to come here so in order to come here you need to buy a ticket and since you're also going to acropolis i would recommend getting a five day pass that gives you access to seven different archaeological sites so it's a way to not really save money but like it gives you a bit more freedom to go to other spots like hadrian's library and the roman agora if you want to do that as well it does not include panathenaic stadium or the acropolis museum so you'll have to buy those separately let's continue and explore this beautiful place as soon as you enter the acropolis museum you come across the first attraction and this is the theater of dionysus now dionysus is the god of merriment wine arts drama and this is the birthplace of drama theater as we know it both architecturally as well as in the form of an art so if you like theater this is your mecca let's continue this is the best spot in athens for a sunset but make sure you come early so you get some good viewing spot for yourself it gets really busy i am an acropolis and in front of the beautiful parthenon this is a symbol of greece and athens and probably the most prominent building in the entire athens you can see it from pretty much every direction so when you enter the complex you will see the theater of dionysus then the roman theater and then you come up here to bring some good shoes because the marble is fairly slippery also i would recommend coming here in the second half of the day because after that you can sit on the hill when you enter from there and then you can watch the sunset which is an amazing experience you don't need to be inside acropolis for that i'm gonna go show you the beauty of this place and tell you a bit more about these magnificent buildings let's go let's continue the tour if you follow me and know me i don't really like museums but acropolis museum is a true exception to that i would definitely recommend you do not miss it it's not covered by the ticket but because it's privately owned but definitely recommend not skipping them you'll also see some missing spaces for statues that's the one that have been taken by the british to the british museum and their space is left for that so i mean i am british and i would really like the statues to come back here to their home so if anyone's listening in the british government this is my consent to do that but do not miss the museum this is the best spot in athens for a sunset but make sure you come early so you get some good viewing spot for yourself it gets really busy not many cities are as blessed as athens when it comes to beautiful sunset views and to experience one i am at lycabettus hill so to get here i took the teleferik i took the taxi from syntagma then i took the teleferik to the very top and there you will see a cute little church with you know the classical blue domes um that we associate with greece but it's really really windy as well as really really busy up there so once you're done having a photo or two just come to the slopes enjoy the beautiful sunset over this amazing city and when you're up there i would also recommend checking out the beautiful view because you can check you can see other hills including acropolis you can see the panathenaic stadium as well it's a great spot not only for sunset but to see the entire athens at a glance food is an absolute pleasure in athens and there are so many places you can try um you can go to monasteraki square but those are mostly touristy places i would recommend having at least one lunch in plaka to like a normal restaurant um they're still quite touristy but they're better than the one in monastiraki i would also recommend you go into more residential neighborhoods and find restaurants there because there's a proper greek food and one of the biggest advantages of coming to athens versus islands is the food is much much cheaper probably less than half the price of what you would get in an island and it's generally fresh and really nice so another great thing to do in athens whether it is day or night athens is really beautiful and if you are coming for a night out psyri and monasteraki are the main areas or if you are lgbt i would recommend going to gazi so i am in plaka which is one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in athens and it is a great place if you want to come for a lunch in the evening for a stroll you know most people have seen this little picture of athens with this stairs like colorful ones for people sitting and drinking and eating that's from plaka and you can easily find the stairs it's not a very big neighborhood so it's good to walk around this is actually the oldest inhabited like continuously inhabited area and in the evenings it provides the perfect view of a lit up acropolis during the day it's just acropolis so definitely visit this place and there's another cute little neighborhood called anafiotika so we're heading there next because it's also closed and that place has some interesting history as well so i'll tell you that there do you want to feel like you're in an island when you are in athens you need to come to anafiotika and this is what the neighborhood looks like it is on top of plaka and you need to come a bit further than what google maps says and then it turns into these cute little alleyways and you feel like you're in one of the greek islands actually the people who basically populated this place they came from an island and they wanted that really beautiful feel so right under acropolis you totally get that and this is one of my favorite areas it's really beautiful especially if you're not going to an island there's no lack of churches in athens and every little street no cranny you will find cute little churches some really big ones as well most of them are really nice and beautiful and you get a really good look in the greek orthodox culture so i would definitely recommend visiting just pop into any one of them and they're equally interesting and free so why not what i find really fascinating about the greek culture is that they're very christian when it comes to tradition but they're also very attached to their pagan past for example the most common names in greek society are still names of gods and goddesses from the greek mythology i'm standing in front of hadrian's arch and this place is great because you get to see some beautiful views of acropolis but the main attraction for coming here is something else something that lies on this side and this is the temple of zeus olympia now you might think the temple on top of acropolis was the biggest temple it was the it is actually the most well preserved one this was actually the biggest one and unfortunately there's a few columns that are left so i've been inside i mean there's not much you're getting other than what you can see from outside so if you want to save some money you can skip this and but i would definitely not recommend skipping this whole place because this is really nice and you get an idea of how the ancient city was laid out from the acropolis to the hadrian's arch to the biggest temple in the entire city athens can be very overwhelming and it is very easy to miss places that are not on the main tourist map i'm sitting in one this is the national garden and most people who come to athens never set foot inside this beautiful little oasis and maybe that's the reason it has become one of my favorite places in the entire city so on one side you have the hellenic parliament the greek parliament on the other side you have the temple of zeus and hadrian's arch and not very far from acropolis either so this is the best place to get a breather to relax take a little break from all the sightseeing and admire the simplicity of this beautiful beautiful place with little walkways little pockets where you can sit and you know relax for a little while and because there are so many locals who come here this is also a great place to sit and people watch a little bit of eye candy to admire those beautiful greek noses everyone raves about why not i absolutely love this place i'm standing at the pentatonic stadium and this is a really really important place for athens this is the birthplace of modern olympics and it is also a stadium that's entirely made of marble and hosts about 50 000 people it's a great place if you want to run a lap around the track you're more than welcome to do that there's a museum that has every single torch that's been passed on to every host country ever since the modern olympics began and it is also you know in summers it's also there's some concerts that happen here it's a great place to come especially if you want to you know stand up the podium feel like a winner why not i'm not going in this time because i've been like three times before and i've been there the entrance is five euros and you also get an audio guide it's 11 30 and there's nowhere you want to be on a sunday morning in athens then this place syntagma square so this is the changing of guard ceremony and this happens every hour but if you want to see the full ceremony with all the frills and you know all the nice gear all the chivalry then you need to arrive around 10 30 because it started around 10 45 although it says 11. so a bit of history there's guarding the tomb of an ancient unknown soldier and that sort of represents all the soldiers that died for greece so everything from the dresses to the caps everything has meanings it's all symbolism if you want to know more i would definitely recommend taking the free walking tour they will give you a lot more information so this is one thing not to miss in athens i know it's not touted as something that you could do easily but athens is very close to the sea and you're never far from the beach anywhere in greece really so it's literally even on the public transport an hour away on a taxi about 20 to 25 minutes i am at astir beach it's quite beautiful and nice and it's the perfect way to come spend half a day or a full day if you want and especially if you're not going to the islands this is a great way to experience the beautiful greek sea the mediterranean and there's tons of restaurants here you can hire a sun bed you can just chill out as long as you want eating drinking partying whatever you fancy so this is another great thing that you must do when you come to athens it's time for me to head to the airport now i've really enjoyed my day at the beach um i still have a little bit of time left i'm gonna go to the airport and then head back to london i really hope you enjoyed exploring athens with me and i will see you guys at another beautiful destination really soon so you have an amazing amazing day ahead bye if you haven't already do subscribe like and comment i always love some feedback this is how you do it
2022-01-24 20:16
