How Best to See Athens on Foot
Updated: 2 days ago
Visiting Greece emerged from a very stressful period in our lives. It was not exactly a spontaneous trip, but definitely one not planned well in advance. Wanting more control and needing a project, we opted to organize the island-hopping ourselves. In the end, we created a rough itinerary that landed us in Mykonos, Delos, Naxos, Santorini, but it all started in Athens.
Athens is a very walkable city, it fact, like many European cities, it is best explored on foot.
We used Google Maps to plot the locations in the city that we were particularly interested in, creating our own free Athens walking tour, but if you prefer to avoid the time and much effort of building your own walking itinerary, you can opt to be guided by a local for a minimal cost. There are a multitude of walking tour options available, including specific themes, like following in the footsteps of artists at sunset.
After a delicious buffet breakfast at The Athens Gate, we set off to just across the street and stopped to visit The Temple of Olympian Zeus and purchase our combo ticket, which allowed us entry into a wide variety of ancient sites around Athens. Words cannot truly convey the size of the pillars of the Temple of Zeus. From a distance, the marble looks ancient and fragile, but up close the massive pillars are thick and solid, piercing a full 57 feet into the sky. Impressive is an understatement.
From the Temple of Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch, we walked a mere 10 minutes to the Panathenaic Stadium. Entirely built of marble, this massive structure was played host to the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Tourists took turns standing on the podium, imagining their Olympic dreams have come true. We purchased coffee and cookies from the kiosk outside of the stadium and sat in awe.
