The Plaka is the oldest section of Athens. Most of
the streets have been closed to automobile
traffic, though you should still keep a watchful
eye for a speeding motorcycle or delivery truck.
At one time it was the nightclub district, but
most of these closed down when the government
out-lawed amplified music in the area in the
seventies in an effort to get rid of undesirables.
The strategy was very successful and it is now an
area of restaurants, Jewelry stores
tourist shops, and cafes.
Though it is quite commercialized it is still a
neighborhood and arguably the nicest neighborhood
in central Athens. Most of the restaurants are
typical tourist places but the quality of food is
not bad in many of them and if you follow my leads in
the restaurant
section
of
this guide you should have a few enjoyable
evenings and not be unpleasantly surprised by the
bill.
As for the tourist shops they are crammed full of
stuff, some of it junk but plenty of interesting
items if you feel compelled to bring back gifts to
everyone you know. Most of the shops have pretty
much the same stuff for pretty much the same
prices but there are some that are more eclectic
than others (like Coral on the corner of Voulis and
Apollonos) that sell antiques, hand painted
icons, wood carvings and paintings. Coral, in the
photo on the right is one of the oldest of these.
But if you wander around the Plaka you will find
lots of other shops and even the regular tourist
shops have amazing postcards that you can send
home and make all your friends jealous. Personally
I like the copies of old taverna and cafe menus
and signs which seem to be pretty popular these
days. There are lots of jewelry stores. Most of
them buy from factories and have the same stuff
for about the same price. But there are a couple
that are artist-owned which have hand-made
original pieces and also copies of ancient museum
pieces. Gold jewelry in Greece is inexpensive, not
because the price of Gold is any cheaper but
because labor is. But generally the pieces that
are hand-made by the artists will have more value
then the mass produced pieces of the same weight.
Of these artist-owned shops we
like Byzantino
Jewelery store.
There are a few galleries and
there are several museums in the Plaka of special
note the Children's Museum, the Music Museum, the
Greek Folk Art Museum and the Jewish Museum which
is right at the entrance to the Plaka at Nikis and
Kydatheneon streets.
See Museums.
Finding the Plaka
First of all you need to get your bearings. The Plaka is under the Acropolis. There are two main streets: Kydatheneon and Adrianou. Kydatheneon begins at Nikis st, which is one block down from Constitution (or Syntagma) Square. If you have your back to the square walk down the large pedestrian street of Ermou and take your first left which is Nikis or your second which is Voulis. Walk up Nikis till you come to a small pedestrian street (Kydatheneon) and take a right. If you walk up Voulis it dead-ends at Kydatheneon.
Adrianou begins in the Monastiraki flea market but disappears in the Roman Agora before reappearing behind the wall of Hadrian's Library and Plaka Square. If you are coming from Omonia Square or the Attalos or Cecil Hotels, walk up Athinas street towards Monastiraki. When you get to the square, or the construction site that will soon be a square, take a left on Metropolis Street or on tiny Pondrossou street beyond. Take a right on Aeolis and when you come to a small square crowded with tables and the giant ancient Roman remains of the wall of Hadrian's Library take a left on Adrianou and you are there. Adrianou and Kydatheneon connect about a quarter of a mile up. Once you know these two streets you can wander around and always find your way back (hopefully).
Entering the Plaka from Kydatheneon
If you are coming from Syntagma on Kydatheneon
street you continue past a small Byzantine church
on your right and
the
Folk-Art
Museum
on your left (worth a visit), you will come to the Saitos Taverna, one
of the last of the basement restaurants that serves bakalairo (fried
codfish) as well as grilled meats and a variety of cooked dishes and
salads and excellent wine from the barrel. Unfortunately if you are
here in the summer it is probably not open so just keep walking down
Kydatheneon to where then action begins
The
Oionos
Cafe
is a nice place to hang out for a soda or a beer. It is on the small Square (which is actually
the main square of the Plaka) near the Byzantino
restaurant and the Cine Paris. Take a left on
Geronda street. Great coffee, shady in the summer
and in the winter there is a nice warm fireplace
inside. If you are coming from the other direction
up Adrianou you take a left on Kydatheneon street
and then a right after the square. They make great
coffee here. In fact all the cafes around the
square are pretty good and nice places to pass the
time anytime of day and no matter what the season
is.
If you order ouzo you may ask for a
'mee-cree
pee-kee-lee-ah',
which means a small snack (or assortment). If you
don't ask for anything you will probably get a
bowl of peanuts which is OK too. The whole art of
drinking ouzo and living to tell about it is the
eating
of
mezedes,
snacks that keep body and mind relatively stable
while drinking. You will very rarely see a Greek
obnoxiously drunk. Drinking in Greece is a from of
communication. I don't want to endorse the
consumption of alcohol as a remedy for anything
but when done in moderation there seems to be
almost a spiritual dimension to it. For me anyway.
The cafes are generally a little pricey if they are on the main roads (Kydatheneon, Adrianou) and around the squares, but in a way worth it for the view. If you sit in one of these cafes long enough you will see that everyone who comes to Greece walks down these two streets. From famous basketball players to rock stars and nobel prize winners, these streets below the Acropolis are a major crossroads of civilization. Some people like to get right out, walking around and shopping as soon as they get to Athens. Personally I like to find a nice quiet outdoor cafe and have an ouzo and a snack or maybe a coffee so I can relax and get into my Greek groove.
You can see my page of my favorite cafes in the Plaka and other downtown areas which is also an entire guide to coffee drinking.
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You may notice that there are several restaurants
with tables in the street. In fact it will be
difficult not to notice because every time you
pass one, a maitre'd, (I use the term loosely)
tries to pull you over to see the menu. These
restaurants are not bad. Typical fare: mousaka,
pastitsio and souvlaki though they will encourage
you to go for the giant shrimp and lobster because
they cost more. But if you want to know where the
locals eat go to the small park-main square on
Kydatheneon. There is
a kiosk (periptero)
that sells everything from gum and postcards to
English language newspapers including the ATHENS
NEWS, USA TODAY and the INTERNATIONAL HERALD
TRIBUNE. The owner of the Kiosk is named Thanasis.
Say hello to him. This is where I buy my
newspapers to read with my morning coffee.
Surrounding the kiosk are tables that belong to
the restaurant across the street. This is
the
Byzantino
Restaurant.
It used to be called Kostis and all the locals ate
here. The owner of the building took it over, made
it a little more upscale and though some might
disagree, it's a better restaurant. The locals
would say he spoiled it. It's one of the best in
the plaka, especially for lunch, and the parade of
people walking by make it an evenings worth of
entertainment. You can sit on the street or under
the trees in the park and this is a good
restaurant to have your first Greek meal in since
it is difficult to go wrong here. Just as good is the Plaka Taverna
right next door. Both places feature good food and friendly service.
There's a larger selection at Byzantino at lunch. In the evening there
is more of an emphasis on grilled meats than oven baked food. See
my Restaurant
Guide for
more places to eat in the Plaka and
elsewhere.
The next cafe after the Byzantine restaurant is
the Sikinos cafe. The tables are under the trees of the small
park and it's another great place to settle down
for a drink and a night, morning or afternoon of
people-watching. It is a little expensive though
no more then a similar cafe in New York or San
Francisco. I usually get an ice coffee
(Frap
peh
) with milk and sugar
(
meh
trio), or a
di
plo es
pres-
so meh
zes
toe
ga
la
ksekorees-ta
. (Memorize this if you love strong espresso).
Then I read my Athens News and watch people for an
hour or two or get on my cell phone and call my
friends on their's to see who is available and
nearby and can come for a coffee. It's one of
those spots where if you sit long enough you will
see everyone you have ever known. Usually after an
island trip I will hang out there and see people
that I saw on the ferries or the beaches. I really
prefer the Oionos or the Kydatheneon but you can't
beat the view here. Whatever you do don't confuse
it for a restaurant. A meal here will be costly . I usually sit at the table with the
column underneath. It is a popular hang-out for
the hearing empaired and many nights you can see
them deep in conversation using sign
language.
The Plaka is full of street musicians, flower
sellers, photographers and people who sell beads
or will write your name on a grain of rice for
1000 drs. My personal favorites are the moldable
faces made out of balloons and the girl who sells
the fuzzy marionettes. All the flower girls know
me and seek me out because after a couple ouzos I
love everyone and believe a woman should
have a flower. Most of the flower girls come
from the area of Xanthi in north-eastern Greece
and are Greek Muslims. The gardinias smell
incredible even when they look a little
ragged.
Of the musicians I like the Albanian folk singer. My favorite song is his rendition of Stevie Wonder's 'I Just Called To Say I love You'. Don't be afraid to request it if he comes to your table though I have heard he is no longer around. One of my favorite street musicians is the accordian player on the corner of Kydatheneon and Voulis. He plays so beautifully and looks so sad I always leave him half a euro or so. If you see him why not do the same? He is usually there in the daytime. I always keep my change and give it to the musicians in the street. I rarely leave the hotel without a pocket full of change jangling and maybe that is why the flower girls find me so easily. One thing to keep in mind is that these people are not bums. Some of them are classically trained and performed in major symphonies in their home countries but have been exiled by war, poverty or other circumstances and now make a living entertaining in the streets of Athens. If you listen you will hear a very high level of musicianship, and giving half a euro for a few hundred notes is a bargain. They say that one of the kids who sang opera with his father on Ermou was discovered and sent to a well known music conservatory. There are a few Russian and Hungarian violin players wandering around who will astound you.
The Cine
Paris,
the best outdoor movie theater in Athens. Of
course you haven't come to Greece to go to the
movies but if you are not ready for a wild night
out and just want to sit back and be entertained,
you are in for a treat. Almost all the movies are
in English with Greek subtitles and when you go
inside you will discover that the theater is on
the roof with a view of the Acropolis. Some nights
you can see the colors change during the sound and
light show. There is a bar and you can have a
brandy and watch your favorite stars in the shadow
of the Parthenon. This is also one of the best
places to buy totally unique gifts because out
front they sell the Greek versions of movie
posters. You can find anything from the most
popular contemporary films to posters from the
sixties. Even if you don't buy you can spend an
hour browsing through them all and in the end you
will probably find something you have to
have.
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As you continue down Kydatheneon street you will
pass a gold shop, a tourist shop and a
gelato-ice-cream store. Then on your left, above
Domigos Bakaliarzidiko is Brettos Liquor
store. But it is more than a liquor store. It is
the oldest distillery in Athens. Go inside and
admire the old barrels full of spirits and the
colored bottles that line the walls up to the
ceiling. He has a tiny bar where you can get
drinks by the glass. If you want to try good ouzo
have some of his. It's very mild tasting and a
great before-dinner drink. Be sure to stop here
before you go back home. His brandy is better then
Metaxa. You can buy ouzo in metal canisters if you
are worried about bottles breaking in your luggage
and it's a gift that you can't find in America. If
you take a taste test comparing his ouzo with
commercial brands that are available in the USA
you will be surprised at the difference. I have
turned around many people who claimed they didn't
like ouzo. They had never had good ouzo. Hopefully
I haven't ruined their lives. Try his Raki too.
Imported from Crete. You won't need more then a
glass to loosen up. Last time I went there I
ordered a case of his spirits and asked him to
ship it to me. For $300 I got 4 bottles of ouzo, 4
bottles of Raki and 4 bottles of his 35 year old
VSOP Brandy. It arrived 2 weeks later fully intact
at my home in the USA. Mailing yourself booze
makes a lot more sense than carrying it back
with you on the plane, especially if you get
a whole case.
Last summer when I went into Brettos it was crowded with people who had read this guide, all talking about their trips, some on the way in and some on the way out. I was very pleased by this for several reasons. First of all, before I put this info on the web the business was in trouble. Most people looked into the shop and admired the colorful bottles and barrels and perhaps took a photo, but then moved on. The business was in trouble because most of it's support was coming from the locals. As one of the last traditional businesses in the Plaka it would be a tragedy for Mr. Brettos to close his doors. This brings me to the second reason. My wife says the day Brettos closes his doors it will be such a tragedy that she will never come to Athens again. So be sure to visit Mr. Brettos, have a drink, buy a metal cannister of ouzo or a bottle of his excellent brandy and let him know how important he is to me. The third reason this pleased me is because everytime I walked in there someone bought me a drink. Even Mr. Brettos.
By the way Mr Brettos wanted me to tell the people who use my guide that he wants to sell the business but he will only sell it to someone who will not change it and will continue the traditonal methods of distilling. If this is your life dream you should go talk to him. If I had the money I would do it.
Just Beyond Brettos Kydatheneon meets Adrianou street,
which is the other main street in the Plaka. If
you continue on Kydatheneon you will come to the Taverna
Thespidos, one of the better restaurants in the
Plaka. It is the last restaurant on the street on
a little square. Just before it on your right is a
really great little shop that sells traditional
products from the islands and
villages. If you like to shop and stroll, make a right on
Adrianou. Tourist shop after jewelry store after
T-shirt store and then repeated again and again.
Everybody who comes to Greece walks up this street
and buys postcards, worry beads (komboloi),
ashtrays, icons, you name it. There are also
street venders selling nuts and refugees from what
was once Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union selling
the strange toys made from flour and balloons or
offering to write your name on a grain of rice for
a few euro.
If
you are shopping for Olympic paraphernalia you have a lot to choose
from. b I don't think there is anything the Athens Olympic Committee
has not licensed and put their little official stamp on and these are
sold in shops on Adriannou like the one at # 107 on the corner
where Hill and Kekropos and
Hatzimichali streets all meet. In fact, disguised as a fanatic
collector of Olympic paraphenalia I went into the Olympic shop and
convinced the owner, a very nice fellow named George (in photo posing
with Flivos and Athina, the Official Olympic mascots), to let me
photograph all the items for my collection since I could not afford to
buy them all. Of course I then stuck them on my website for everyone to
see since for some strange reason it is forbidden by the Olympic
Committee
to advertise these products. But I am not advertising them, I am revealing them. Or unveiling them. Anyway if you want to know what kind of Olympic merchandise will be available and if enough people go to this store maybe George won't be mad at me for fooling him. He also has the Swatch Shop
next door which I know well. Not that I have owned a watch since I left
mine hanging on a tree in the rain when I was 12 years old, but my
daughter feels
like she has to have a new one every year and can spend hours in the
store. I suppose Olympic Swatches will be collectors items one day too.
George says they are 'limited edition' which I guess means they may
become valuable depending on how many were made, how many are sold and
how successful the Olympics are. Keep in mind that thousands of Athens 96
Olympic T-shirts were printed up and sold before the games ended
up going to Atlanta. I have several that I treasure and there are still
some to
be found in the shops of Athens. George may even have some. You can
also read about the 2004 Olympic Swatch Mystery which I uncovered while previewing the line of Olympic Swatches.
The Byzantino
Jewelery Store is
on your left at 120 next to the ice-cream shop.
This is where my wife buys her jewelery from
because the prices are so low and the work is so
good. (My wife is a goldsmith). They work
primarily with 22K gold in a variety of styles, of
which my favorites are those that are based on the
ancient Greek designs or exact copies. Laura from
California (left) works here. I go in sometimes and have
her try on pieces of jewlery " to model for the
website" I tell her. But I just like photographing
her because she is so beautiful. This is one
of the few jewelry stores that is
artist-owned. In
other words they make their own pieces rather than
buy from a factory. If you are looking for
something beautiful that will gain value then shop
here. The jewelry stores are fiercely competitive
and I have gotten e-mails from people who
complained to me that they have walked into
jewelry stores that claimed they were Byzantino,
or made negative remarks about Byzantino in order
to convince the customer to shop there instead. I
suppose this is a bi-product of the popularity of
this guide. If this happens to you, thank the shop
owner and go to Byzantino and look at their work
and talk to them. Then decide for yourself. By the
way, Byzantino was chosen to create the jewelry
worn by the women in the closing ceremony of the
2000 Sydney Olympics and have official Athens 2004 jewelry too. They have also created their own line of Olympic Jewelry
based on actual ancient pieces and victory wreathes. Personally, to
me these look more interesting than the official pieces and will
probably be worth a lot more since they are made in limited quantity
and will only be sold in Byzantino.
Further down the street is the shop of Angelo the Ouzo King who prides himself on having more varieties of ouzo than any shop in Athens. If you want to know all about Ouzo he is the guy to talk to and his shop also has traditional products like olive oil, herbs, sweets, wine, soap and natural products from all over Greece. Continue down Adrianou until you come to Remember, the first punk-fashion store in Greece and an institution. Run by designer Dimitris Tsounatos this boutique has been visited by your favorite rock stars, actors, fashion designers and models and there is a photo album full of them to prove it. If you are looking for unique designs in clothes, jewelry and art, or if you just want to see something different from the tourist shops that line Adrianou then stop in at #79 Adrianou.
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If shopping for jewelry or ouzo does not excite you there
is an alternative. Turn left up Hill Street (or
Chill street, depending on which of the two street
signs you look at) and follow the street as it
becomes Scholiou and then Epiharmou Street. Stop
and look straight ahead and up. It's the walls of
the Acropolis and below it, where Epiharmou
connects with Tripodon is an ouzerie known locally
as Kouklis.
You will see a building with a packed balcony and
windows. Sit down and have a drink. Their
specialty is flaming sausages and trout but most
people come here to drink the day away. The food
is decent and some travel-writers spend hours here thinking they have
stumbled upon the real thing but actually a more authentic place with
better food is To Kafeneon just below with its tables slanted so precariously that there is at least one food accident a night. Very
cozy indoors in the winter with a fireplace and a
warming glass of tsipura and their collection of
mezedes from northern Greece. You won't see many tourists but at
least one copy of the menu is in English.
Next door to Kouklis is a fancy ice-cream and milk shop called Amalfi. If you have a sweet tooth I encourage you to go inside. The small church next to Kouklis is St Nicholas and is one of the most popular of the old churches in Athens and a great place to go if you are in Athens for midnight mass on Easter Sunday. If you cross the parking lot and go up the steps and take a right you will come to another of my favorite restaurants, Psaras fish taverna, under new ownership but a nice place for a meal away from the crowds.
Anafiotika is
the cluster of small houses built on the slopes of
the Acropolis above the Plaka. It's like being on
a Greek Island. It's named Anafiotika because the
original inhabitants were stone masons who came
from the island of Anafi to
build Athens in the mid 19th century. Just
continue up the steps between Kouklis and the
Byzantine church of St Nicholas next to it. You
can wander around the small streets and if you
continue to your right (facing the acropolis) you
can walk along the road that overlooks the city
and leads to the entrance for Greece's most famous
archaeological site and historic landmark, the
Acropolis. If you continue walking past the entrance of the
Acropolis and take a right when you get to the new
pedestrial street Apostolou Pavlou street you will
end up in Thission or
you can continue on and take a right on Ermou and
you are back in Monastiraki. (You can also get to
Monastiraki by cutting through the Agora using the
entrance next to the rock of Areopagos just below
the entrance to the Acropolis.) If you
take a left instead you will be on the same street
but called Dionissou Aeropagitou end up in
Makrianni where you can take a left on Byronos
street and find yourself right back in the heart
of the Plaka again. Byron will take you past the
Dirty Corner, a hangout for poets and musicians in
bygone days, right in front of the Monument of
Lysacratus. Believe it or not had the mounument
not been property of the Capucian Monastery which
used to stand here, Lord Elgin would have taken
the monument apart and taken it back to England
with the Parthenon Marbles and you would have to
go to the British Museum to see
it.
If you are on Adrianou walking down towards Monastiraki you will pass a couple places of interest including the sponge shops, the traditonal milkshop on the left where you can sit down and eat all sorts of sweets, and a series of T-shirt shops and boutiques. Halfway down Adrianou they allow cars but traffic is sparse and unpleasant for any car that happens to get stuck among the pedestrians. Adrianou passes the Platia Plaka and the wall of Hadrian's library and the Roman Agora.
If you are interested in art don't miss the Frissiras Museum of Contemporary Greek and European Painting at 3 & 7, Monis Asteriou str. (tel. no. 210 3234678, 3316027). The Frissiras Museum is the only museum of its kind in Greece. It houses a private collection of contemporary paintings and drawings as well as temporary exhibitions of Greek and European artists, in two fully renovated neoclassical buildings of the 19th century.
The
Plaka is loaded with archaeological sites both
large and small. The famous Tower of the Winds is
just a block up from Adrianou on Aeolou street and
it is a part of the ancient Roman Agora. It was believed by later
generations to be a place of great magic and to be the grave of Phillip
of Macedon but it was actually a meteorological station from the
first century built by the Syrian Astronomer Andronikos Kyrrhestes. It
had a hydrolic clock fueled from a reservoir on the south side and
inside was a mechanical device that represented the sun, the moon and
the five known planets. The freize which represents the winds and their
personalities is the most
interesting part of the building and deserves a closer look.
The
Mosque on the grounds of the Roman Agora was called the Mosque of
Mehmet the Conqueror, built around 1458 for the visit to Athens by
Sultan Mehmet a fan of the ancient Greek philosophers. Later the
Mosque was known as the Wheat Bazaar Mosque because it was next to the
yearly wheat market. It was briefly a Catholic
church during the five months that the Venetians occupied the city. The
minaret was demolished after Greece won it's independence and the
mosque became a school for teachers and then a bakery for the army. Now
it is just used for storage by the archaeologists working on the Roman
Agora.
Across
from the Tower is the doorway of the Medrese, originally a theological
school founded in 1721 by Mehmet Fahri. During the War of Independence
the Turks used it as a prison and hung many Greeks from the platanos
tree and after the war the Greeks used it for the same purpose. In the
minds of the Athenians it became a cursed place.
The poet Achilleas Paraschos in 1843 predicted that one day it would be
chopped up and used for firewood. He was right. In 1919 the tree was
struck by lightning and the rest was chopped down and used for
firewood. The building itself was demolished except for the door.
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The whole
area around the Roman Agora is surrounded by tavernas, most of them
catering to tourists, but in general they are all
OK. It seems like everywhere you look in the Plaka
there is evidence of some past civilization, being
it Greek, Roman or Ottoman Turkish. In some places
the pavement has been opened to reveal ancient
columns and houses. Some say that in their
zealousness, the archaeologists have sacrificed
many of the beautiful old buildings of the 19th
century to expose the ancient sites and have
spoiled the area. In a way it is true because when
I wander through the Plaka I wish there was more
of it. I wish the whole city of Athens was like
the Plaka. But I guess you can't have everything
and the Plaka is certainly large enough so that it
should take a lot longer then the time a tourist
has to explore, to get bored with
it.
On
the Makrianni side of the Plaka is the Monument to Lysikrates built to
commemorate a series of plays. It is the last remaining of many which
lined what is now Tripodon street. The Jesuits had a house next to it
which in 1658 was bought by the Capuchins who then bought the monument
and used it as a chapel. The Capuchan Monastery
was the closest thing Athens had to a hotel. Chateaubriand stayed there
as did Lord Byron, where he wrote part of Childe Harold. Amazingly,
Lord Elgin wanted to take the monument apart and reassemble it in
England and was only stopped because it belonged to the Capuchans and
for that reason the Turkish Viavode (Governor) could not give his
permission. Just above the monument is a cafe that used to be the last Karagiozis Theater. If you take a right on
Tripodon and walk with the acropolis on your left you will see the new Karagiozis school.
As many monuments and ancient buildings there are in Athens there is one man who can be blamed for there not being many more. That was Ali Hadji Haseki, the governor of Athens in the late eighteenth century. He taxed the people of Athens until they had nothing and reduced the whole area to poverty. In 1778 he and the small circle of rich Athenians, who also prospered off the work of the people, decided to build a wall around the city, supposedly to keep Albanians out but actually to keep the Athenians in. Some of the cities most ancient landmarks and buildings were demolished to build this wall including the bridge over the Illissos River, the Temple to Demeter and the facade of Hadrian's reservoir on Lykabettos. Finally Sultan Selim III took notice of what was happening in Athens and Haseki was beheaded on the island of Kos, his head taken and exhibited in the Topkapi Palace. The mansion of Ali Haseki is now the School of Agriculture.
Whether you like hanging out, shopping, eating,
or wandering around, the Plaka is a great area to
be in or near. From it you can walk to all the
desirable parts of central Athens with a minimum
of contact with the aspects of modern civilization
many people find unpleasant: autos, pollution,
noise and crowds. The Plaka is like a small island
in the middle of the city and it was not very long
ago that the Plaka was the city of Athens. If you
have time to kill get off the beaten paths and
walk through the back streets. Admire the
architecture of buildings that have stood for
hundreds of years or climb the hill and see
buildings that have lasted for thousands. It
is for that reason that I suggest finding a hotel
in the Plaka or nearby. If you have a hotel
actually in the Plaka you may never come in
contact with the Athens traffic that so many
people complain about. If you are staying in
Makrianni or on Athinas you may have to cross a
street or two. But if you are down Syngrou or way
up in Ambelokipi you will need to take a hotel
shuttle or a Metro to get to the Plaka and in my
opinion it is much easier to walk out the door to
your hotel any time of day and be in the Plaka
then to have to make your way here. Keep this in
mind when you are booking your hotel. If you are
working with a travel agents in the USA or
thinking about going on a package tour, find out
where the hotels offered are located because it
could make a big difference in your appreciation
of the city of Athens. If none of the hotel
choices are near the Plaka then be skeptical and
ask them why. Your best option is to work with
a Greek
Agency in
Athens that knows the city. Tell them you want to
be able to walk to the Plaka if not be in it. The
Plaka is minutes away from the Metro so you can
easily get to Pireaus and to the islands. For
recommended hotels in and around the Plaka
see Hotels
.
Some people complain that the Plaka is not what
it used to be, that it has been spoiled. You could
say the same thing about Mykonos or Greenwich
Village or Fisherman's Wharf too. Anything
beautiful will be exploited. That is the nature of
life on the planet. The Plaka has certainly
changed. Artists who sold their paintings on the
street now have their own galleries and musicians
who played the small clubs now sell out stadiums in
Greece and overseas. The working-class tavernas
are gone or have become fancy, but there is still
good food to be found. Plaka is no longer bohemian
and that bugs a lot of people. But it is still fun
and it is not only tourists who come here. Greeks
hang out here too. It has changed but it is still
the best place in Athens to go and not feel like
you are in Athens and on a sunny weekend afternoon
or evening much easier to get to than an island.
So use the Plaka as your base and get to know it
while venturing into other pleasant areas like
the National
Gardens and other
green
areas or
as a place of refuge to return to from visits
to Omonia,
the Central
Market, and
some of the wilder parts of Athens. And of course
the Plaka is the best place in Athens to buy that
perfect gift for someone special.
When in the Plaka visit the Hellenic Society for the Protection of the Environment and the Cultural Heritage at 28 Tripodon Street in the Plaka, just beyond the Lysicratus Statue. The center is not only a museum with a nice little bookstore, but it also has a restaurant that serves traditional food. The most impressive thing about it is in the basement where you can see the original ancient Tripodon Street and a 5th Century BC wall. Stop in and buy something or have lunch. It is for a good cause.