Walking Tour: The Acropolis, Filopappou & Environs

Walking Tour: The Acropolis, Filopappou & Environs

If you see nothing else in Athens, you must visit the Acropolis. Even jaded Athenians, when overwhelmed by the city, feel renewed when they lift their eyes to this great monument. Take the metro to the Acropolis station, where the New Acropolis Museum is under construction. Follow the pedestrianized street Dionyssiou Aerogapitou, which traces the foothill of the Acropolis to its entrance at the Beulé Gate. Buildings include the architecturally complex Erechtheion temple, most sacred of the shrines of the Acropolis, and the Parthenon, which dominates the Acropolis and, indeed, the city skyline: it is the most architecturally sophisticated temple of its period. Time and neglect have given its marble pillars their golden-white shine, and the beauty of the building is made all the more stark and striking.

While on the outcrop, pause at the edge of the southern fortifications, where, on a clear day, you can see the coastline toward Sounion and the Saronic Gulf islands of Aegina and Salamina. Leave time for the Acropolis Museum, which houses some superb sculptures from the Acropolis, including most of the caryatids and a large collection of colored statues of women dedicated to the goddess Athena. (When the New Acropolis Museum opens by the end of 2006, this collection will move there). As you exit the gate, detour right to the rock of Areopagus, the ancient supreme court, from which St. Paul later preached to the Athenians.

Cross Dionyssiou Areopagitou to Filopappou; before climbing the summit, via the footpaths crisscrossing the hill, stop at tiny Ayios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris church, and then have a coffee at the tourist pavilion. Descend Dionyssiou Areopagitou, past the Odeon of Herod Atticus and the Hellenistic Theater of Dionyssos. Across the street is the controversial New Acropolis Museum. The huge, modern museum will showcase the treasures of the Parthenon and will feature glass floors so that you can peer down into the ongoing archaeological excavations. Nearby is the Ilias LALAoUNIS Jewelry Museum, with more than 3,000 pieces and a workshop where visitors can observe ancient techniques still used today.

Timing

Such is the beauty of the Acropolis and the grandeur of the setting that a visit in all seasons and at all hours is rewarding. In general, the earlier you start out the better. By noon, the summer heat is blistering and the reflection of the light thrown back by the rock and the marble ruins almost blinding. An alternative, in summer, is to visit after 5 PM, when the light is best for taking photographs.

In any season the ideal time might be the two hours before sunset, when occasionally the fabled violet light spreads from the crest of Mt. Hymettus (which the ancients called "violet-crowned") and gradually embraces the Acropolis. After dark the hill is spectacularly floodlighted, visible from many parts of the capital. A moonlight visit -- sometimes scheduled by the authorities during full moons in summer -- is highly evocative. In winter, if there are clouds trailing across the mountains, and shafts of sun lighting up the marble columns, the setting takes on an even more dramatic quality.

Depending on the crowds, the walk takes about four hours, including one spent in the Acropolis Museum. The Ilias LALAoUNIS Jewelry Museum is closed Tuesday, so you may want to take this tour another day.