The 277-metre limestone cone that rises out of central Athens, and the upmarket Kolonaki neighbourhood at its foot — the city’s gallery-and-restaurant district, the funicular up to the chapel and the city panorama.
Lycabettus is the other Athenian hill — taller than the Acropolis, sharper, lonelier, with a tiny whitewashed 19th-century chapel at the top and a 360° panorama that takes in the Attic basin from the Saronic Gulf to Mount Parnitha. The Kolonaki neighbourhood at its foot is the city’s most upmarket — galleries, design shops, the better restaurants, the Benaki Museum.
Walk up the pine-shaded path from Aristippou Street in Kolonaki — twenty-five minutes uphill, switchbacks, benches, the city dropping away below you. Or take the funicular from the Aristippou street terminus — €10 return, three minutes through the rock. The chapel of Agios Georgios at the top dates from 1870; the small open-air theatre below it (1965, Takis Zenetos) hosts summer concerts. The view at sunset is the best in the city — the Acropolis directly south-west, the Saronic Gulf beyond it, Aegina visible on a clear day; the Attic basin filling with light on the eastern side. Kolonaki below is its own neighbourhood — Voukourestiou for the design and jewellery shops; Skoufa for the cafés; Patriarchou Ioakeim for the restaurants; the small Kolonaki Square (Plateia Filikis Etaireias) for the slow Athenian afternoon. The Benaki Museum on Vasilissis Sofias is the great Athenian decorative-art collection (4,000 years of Greek craft, in a converted Ionic-style mansion).
A Lycabettus-and-Kolonaki afternoon.
Two hours through the 4,000 years of Greek decorative art — start in the Mycenaean room, end in the post-Independence painting.
Café Boheme or Filion — long ninety-minute lunch on the pavement; the slow Kolonaki rhythm.
An hour wandering the design-and-jewellery side of Kolonaki — the Athens version of upmarket shopping is small and idiosyncratic.
The Kolonaki Square café everyone passes through — slow espresso, the long Athenian afternoon, plan the evening.
Aristippou Street terminus; €10 return; three minutes up; an hour at the top with the city filling with sunset light.
Twenty minutes down the pine path back to Kolonaki — book Hytra (Michelin-starred Greek) or Tudor Hall on the Athens Plaza roof. The upmarket finish.
On foot, within ten minutes.
Five minutes' walk south — Parliament, the changing of the guard, the old royal garden. Detail on the Syntagma page.
Three minutes' walk south on Neofytou Douka — the world's best collection of 5,000-year-old Cycladic marble figurines. Worth ninety minutes.
Five minutes' walk south on Vasilissis Sofias — the 4,000-year decorative-art collection. Two hours.
Twelve minutes' walk south-west — the old quarter under the Acropolis. Detail on the Plaka page.
Fifteen minutes' walk south-east — the eating neighbourhood. Detail on the Pangrati page.
Tell us a little about the trip you want — pace, who's coming, how you'd like to spend your mornings. We'll build the days.
