Athens

Athens International Airport (Eleftherios Venizelos) is connected to the city center by a fast Metro line (40 minutes to Syntagma). Check into your hotel in the center and walk immediately to the Plaka — the ancient neighborhood directly beneath the Acropolis, whose winding streets were laid out in Ottoman times and preserve the oldest inhabited urban fabric in Athens. The Acropolis lights up at dusk and the view from any rooftop bar in the Plaka — or from the steps of the Monastiraki mosque facing the Acropolis — is one of the great introductions to any city in the world. Your first dinner should be at a taverna in the Plaka or Psyrri: begin with tzatziki, taramasalata, and spanakopita, then grilled whole fish with lemon and olive oil. Athens is simpler than Rome or Florence to navigate and enormously warm — the locals are delighted when visitors show interest in their city.

Go to the Acropolis at 8am when it opens — the site is at its most atmospheric and least crowded in the early morning, the light is soft and golden, and the Parthenon glows with a warmth that photographs taken at midday never capture. The Acropolis complex includes the Parthenon (dedicated to Athena, 447-432 BC), the Erechtheion with its famous Caryatid porch, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Propylaia gateway — all in white Pentelic marble, all on a scale that is still overwhelming 2,500 years later. After two hours on the rock, walk to the Acropolis Museum — one of the finest museum buildings in Europe, designed by Bernard Tschumi with the archaeological site visible through its glass floors. The frieze rooms on the top floor, looking directly up at the Parthenon through full-height windows, are genuinely moving. Lunch in Koukaki, Athens's most stylish neighborhood, then an afternoon at leisure in the Monastiraki flea market.

The National Archaeological Museum on Patission Street is one of the world's great museums — and dramatically undervisited compared to its importance. The Gold Mask of Agamemnon, discovered by Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae in 1876, is the museum's most famous object; but the collection of Cycladic figures (elegant abstract marble sculptures from 3000-2000 BC), the bronze Artemision Zeus, and the extraordinary Antikythera Mechanism — the world's first analog computer, a 2,000-year-old device for calculating astronomical positions — make this a full-morning experience. Lunch in Exarchia, Athens's anarchist-bohemian neighborhood northwest of the museum, where the tavernas are excellent and cheap. In the afternoon, visit the Ancient Agora — the civic center of classical Athens, less dramatic than the Acropolis but more intimate, with the beautifully restored Stoa of Attalos and the well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus. Stay until closing and then catch sunset from the hill of the Areopagus.

Choose between two very different day-trip experiences. The Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion (70km south of Athens) sits on a dramatic white cliff above the Aegean and is one of the most romantically situated ancient monuments in Greece — Lord Byron carved his name on one of its columns in 1810. The coastal road from Athens passes through the Athens Riviera, a string of upscale beach towns with excellent fish restaurants; stop for lunch in Vouliagmeni or Varkiza before driving the final stretch to Sounion. Alternatively, take the 35-minute Flying Dolphin hydrofoil from Piraeus Port to the island of Aegina for a glimpse of Greek island life within an hour of the city — the well-preserved Temple of Aphaia, the pistachio orchards (Aegina pistachios are the finest in Greece), and the seafront tavernas make it a complete island day without an overnight. Return to Athens by early evening.

Athens has beaches that most visitors don't know about — and the Athens Riviera, stretching south from the city along the Saronic Gulf coast, is genuinely lovely. Asteras Vouliagmeni is the finest beach club on the Riviera, with sunbeds on the sand, a swimming area with crystalline Aegean water, and a restaurant serving excellent seafood. Take the coastal tram from Syntagma (45 minutes) or a taxi (30 minutes) to Vouliagmeni. Lake Vouliagmeni — a natural thermal lake just inland, heated by underground volcanic activity — is an extraordinary swim: warm, brackish, and crystal-clear, with theraputic mineral properties. Lunch at the Astir Beach restaurant. Return through Glyfada — Athens's upscale southern suburb, with excellent shopping, café culture, and a laid-back seaside vibe. Dinner back in Athens at Funky Gourmet or Spondi for a creative Greek fine dining experience.

Athens has transformed dramatically since its post-2010 economic crisis years — the formerly depressed neighborhoods of Koukaki, Metaxourgeio, and Psyrri have become creative hubs of independent restaurants, natural wine bars, concept stores, and gallery spaces. Koukaki, directly south of the Acropolis, is the epicenter of the new Athens food scene: visit Seychelles (natural wine and mezze), Mana (wood-fired vegetables and interesting Greek produce), or To Kati Allo for creative modern Greek cooking. The morning is best spent at the Benaki Museum — a private collection of Greek art from prehistoric times through the 20th century, in a beautiful neoclassical mansion in Kolonaki — and the Museum of Cycladic Art next door, which houses the world's finest collection of those clean, abstract marble Cycladic figures. Afternoon in Kolonaki for upmarket shopping and people-watching at the cafés on Kolonaki Square.

Athens International Airport is 45 minutes from the city center by Metro — depart with plenty of time. A final morning might include one more circuit of the Plaka lanes, a stop at the Central Market on Athinas Street for the extraordinary spectacle of Athenian daily food life — hundreds of vendors selling fish, meat, spices, cheese, olives, and every vegetable the Greek countryside produces. The Varvarakeios meat market in particular is legendary. Take home a bag of thyme honey, dried herbs from the Greek mountains, a bottle of Assyrtiko wine from Santorini, and the specific smell of Athens — salt air, jasmine, roasting souvlaki — that will follow you all the way home.