Athens, Greece
While the Acropolis is, of course, the most important
ancient site in Athens, there are several others worth visiting around the city
center. Six additional ones are included
if you purchase a combination pass with the Acropolis for only 10 Euros above
the 20 Euro Acropolis-only admission fee.
The relatively minimal visitation at the other sites indicates that only
a small minority of those who go to the Acropolis make it to any of the others.
And they’re definitely not on the agenda of many annoying cruise ship land
excursion tours.
To me the most impressive of these sights is the Ancient
Agora, which contains several mostly intact buildings among the ruins. Great Agora Museum is housed in the Stoa of
Attalos, a kind of an ancient shopping mall dating from the 1st
century B.C.. The intact 10th
century Church of Holy Apostles is also on the grounds. Meanwhile, the Temple
of Haphaistos, god of the forge, was built in 449 B.C. and is the best
preserved Doric Temple in all of Greece.
A second site in the opposite direction from the Acropolis
is the Temple of Olympian Zeus, once the largest temple in all of Greece with
104 Corinthian columns.
Begun in the sixth century B.C., it wasn’t completed
until the reign of Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century A.D. Only a
small part and a few of the enormous temple’s columns remain standing.
Not all ancient sites in Athens date from the Classical
Greek era. Roman Emperor Hadrian loved Athens and built monuments during his
reign around 130 A.D. including Hadrian’s Arch and Hadrian’s Library. The library is the largest structure erected
by Romans in Athens. Slightly earlier in date is the nearby Roman Agora from
time of Julius Caesar in 1st century A.D.
A short distance west of the historic city center lies
Kerameikos, an ancient cemetery with a good museum housing funerary items found
on site. The place is named for the potters who settled in the area around
3,000 B.C., although most of what’s on the site dates from Archaic and Classic
Greek era. Finally, Aristotle’s Lyceum, only excavated in 2011, is where
Aristotle founded his school of philosophy in 335 BC.
One ancient/modern hybrid site that requires a separate admission
is the Panathenaic Stadium. Site of 4th century B.C. stadium where
the panhellenic games took place, it was rebuilt for the first modern Olympic
games which took place in Athens in 1896. The stadium seats 70,000 spectators
around a running track and field. It was
used for a few competitions like archery and the marathon finish when Athens next
hosted the Olympics in 2004 but was deemed to small (and primitive) for more important
events like opening and closing ceremonies.
2025-05-23