National Library (Athens)

Advantages: Fun, fascinating and altogether fabulous
Disadvantages: Chaotic and confusing for the first time visitor

...a look. 5. NATIONAL GARDENS Now when I lived in Athens I didn't have much money and neither did my friends, and one of the things we used to do was to go for picnics. The ideal destination was always the beach but as we lived on opposite sides of town it was not so easy for us to get to and so the National Gardens seemed the perfect compromise. I spent many a happy afternoon lying on a rug soaking up the sun and generally setting the world to rights. Much bigger than they appear on the map, the gardens are free to enter and explore for the most part. There are cafeterias and kiosks if you need them but you can also take in your own food as we did (admittedly this behaviour is not very Greek and you may get some odd looks but who cares?). The only thing I would say about the gardens is that if you are an animal lover be a bit... Read review

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Advantages: Vibrant, cheap excellent public transport. Famous historic sites. Eating out
Disadvantages: Not as 'Greek' as it used to be. Poor air quality. The drivers!

...I'd been to Athens before, but not since 1973 so I was fully expecting a lot of changes, and to a greater extent I was right. For example, I was probably amongst the last tourists to be allowed full access to wander all over the famous Parthenon on the Acropolis hill. Since then it has been fenced off and variously concealed behind one piece of scaffolding or another, and is rumoured to stay that way for decades. I remember that summer of '73 with some trepidation - it was damned hot to be in a city and the traffic was truly awful, with blue fumes from two-stroke 'pop-pops' everywhere. Since then, cars have got a lot cleaner, but regrettably more numerous. Of course, going there in the October half-term holiday helps with the air-quality too! WHERE IS IT? It's the capital of Greece and lies in the province... Read review

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Advantages: now a clean and rather quiet city
Disadvantages: we couldn't find any in the short time we stayed there

...came to the first entrance gate where we had got in in the morning, got into the site again and had a close look at the best conserved temple of the whole of Greece, the Temple of Hephaistos, imagining the Athens of the 5th century BC when it was a centre of literature, philosophy and the arts. Maybe Sophocles, Aristotle and Plato - to name but a few - walked around philosophising just where we were walking? Had we been to Athens for the first time we would have gone to the National Archaeological Museum in the afternoon, but we had already seen it and had been to the Archaeological Museum of Nicosia only three days ago and four month before that to the one in Heraklion, Crete, both tiny in comparison but as we had studied the artefacts profoundly there we felt we had got enough information on the art of the classical period of Greece... Read review

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