LONG TIME DEAD

Me and my 73-year-old Dad have a load of fun exploring the neighbourhoods of Athens, listening to great live music and drinking raki. September 2025.

This is actually the first holiday we have ever done as a duo and Athens was carefully selected to meet both our needs. It is the 8^th largest urban area in the EU and so fits my passion for big dynamic cities. It is also one of the oldest cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for over 5,000 years, fuelling my Dad’s appetite for places with global historical significance. The omens are good.

Arrival is 7pm Thursday and our apartment is practically on top of the Sygrou-Fix metro stop. Connectivity to the rest of the city is excellent and the surrounding backstreets of Koukaki turn out to be a top place to just wander and soak up daily Athens life. 

We immediately dump our bags and take a 15-minute walk into Mets. Mets is a small residential neighbourhood, seemingly inhabited by a lot of artists, journos and architects and with a very nice laid-back vibe and good bars. Just the sort of area we both like.    

Dinner is at a locals place called Olympion. They serve simple and very cheap traditional Greek plates and we washed it all down with a couple of bottles of Fix. I’m not a lager guy but the beer options were limited, and I knew that Fix was historically brewed in Mets. I also knew we would sample some more adventurous craft beers later in the trip.

On the same road as Olympion are some decent coffee shops that we tried over the course of the weekend – the best being Joshua Tree Cafe and Kain All Day Bar. These were both tips from the This is Athens neighbourhood guide and I recommend a good browse of this excellent resource before you visit.  

After dinner, we head to the Theatre of the No in Omonia. This is a small independent stage and music hub and tonight is the Barakos Orchestra putting on a performance dedicated to the Greek Jazz legend Giorgos Barakos. Great crowd in here and we happily sit amongst them, sipping on our first rakis and enjoying the music. We loved it.

We get to bed well after midnight, as we did every evening on this trip. Neither of us would claim to be party animals but Athens just gets going late with most gigs seeming to start at 10ish and restaurants very busy until pretty much midnight.       

We are up early on Friday for a three-hour street art walking tour booked through Alternative Athens. Our focus is mainly the Gazi, Keramikos and Thiseio neighbourhoods and our guide Niko is superb. Turns out Athens is one of the world’s hottest destinations for graffiti artists and street art. Alternative Athens provide a range of interesting tours and are well worth checking out.

After an afternoon snooze we hit the streets again. First up we spend a couple of hours at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST). The museum is housed in what was the 1957 Fix Brewery building, so a nice post-war modernist structure. It spans seven floors and when we visited was showing eight fab exhibitions concurrently. There is a brilliant rooftop bar as well!

We had dinner at Olympion again (why change a winning formula) and then head over to the iconic Panathenaic Stadium for a Ludovico Einaudi concert.

I have always liked Einaudi’s music after I saw it feature so brilliantly in Shane Meadows’ This England 86. The gig wasn’t cheap but was too good an opportunity to miss.  The setting is spectacular – this is the famous open air marble stadium constructed for the first modern day Olympics in 1896. We reckon there are about 15,000 punters in there tonight and Ludovico didn’t disappoint.   

We rounded off our evening with late night rakis at one of the best bars in Mets – the Odeon Cafe-bar on Mark Mousourou Street.

Saturday morning we take a wander through Exarchia – a properly rebellious neighbourhood, full of anarchists and bohemians. We were told the police are not welcome here and I got a few raised eyebrows with my camera, but it all added to the experience. The food market on Kallidromiou Street (Saturday only) was a highlight as was watching the locals play chess at Chess Cafe Panellinion. I would recommend the place we went for brunch – Warehouse.

Saturday afternoon we split up. My Dad went to the ancient Agora. This was once the beating heart of ancient Athens and is now a tranquil oasis in the middle of the city. He spent a couple of hours here exploring the extensive ruins. Dad said the museum was excellent with a top range of exhibits and superb views over the site and beyond. Pride of place for him was the Temple of Hephaestus, an impressive and largely intact building overlooking the site.

I went to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC) down in Piraeus port. This is an amazing modern structure housing the national library, opera house, theatre and a range of exhibitions – all surrounded by a great new park. It is very easy to spend a couple of hours here, and once again you must get to the rooftop for views and refreshments.

That evening we go to a really good craft beer place near our apartment (Strange Brew) and then head back to Exarchia. Our venue is the Wreck of Angels – a small smoke-filled basement restaurant that puts on Rebetiko music every night. Rebetiko is the folk music of the urban working class, a bit like Fado if you have ever heard that in Portugal. We are the only non-locals (and non-smokers!) in here but are made to feel very welcome. We have a great night – again fuelled by plenty of raki. Click here for a good guide on where else to find Rebetiko in Athens.    

Sunday we go to the Acropolis – the ancient citadel that houses the amazing Parthenon and Erechtheum and which dominates the Athens skyline. We take a tour up there with Athens Walks. Whilst the hordes were somewhat irritating there is no denying this a seriously impressive experience. It must have taken some effort to get that much marble to this height from quarries that were about 15km away, all with ropes and pulleys.

After the Acropolis we wander through the National Garden to the Pangrati neighbourhood. This is a lovely part of Athens, particularly the area around the Alsos Pagkratiou Park where there are plenty of good food and drink options. I furthered my new-found love for Expresso Freddo in a cool café – Foyer Espresso Bar.

Our last night is an absolute winner. First up we spend a few hours in The Art Foundation (TAF), a place we stumbled on near to the Monastiraki metro stop. It is a courtyard bar + makers workshop + gallery space. The drinks and music were spot on and I came out with both a quirky necklace to take home to my partner Paula and a new mate – Andreas Kamoutsis – who is an Athens based street photographer who talked me through his brilliant Spontaneous Shooters exhibition.    

After gyros we head to one of the oldest outdoor cinemas in Athens – Cine Thisio – for the 20.30 showing of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, in English with Greek subtitles. Turns out there are 65 outdoor cinemas in Athens (see this guide for a selection) and I think we have chosen the best. We can see the illuminated Acropolis from our seats, it feels like the 1940s and they serve cute glasses of sweet cherry liqueur on ice.  

We even had a surprise appearance from the rain as we watched our film. The rain simply added to the experience as all 40 or so of us crammed under a little tin canopy near the projection unit to stay dry. And I think everyone bar me and Dad decided to have a fag whilst under there.

Some Reflections

I can’t imagine a better time to visit Athens than late September. The temperature has generally dropped to about 25-27 degrees, which for me is just perfect to explore a big city.

Getting around Athens on public transport was so easy, and cheap. We bought a five-day unlimited pass for all metro, tram and bus lines for just 8 Euros. Athens also loves its cars, but alas I saw relatively few bikes.   

I think a big plus point for Athens is the diversity and authenticity of its central neighbourhoods. Each offer something different and they represent an excellent way to escape tourists and experience life like a local.   

Athens has great energy. It seems to me to be a place where young people and creative people really want to be. This translates into a rich spectrum of things to do and is certainly a place I could easily go back to time after time without getting bored.  

Finally, a shout out to my Dad. He was a top travel companion and we got on really well. We will do a trip like this again. And I hope I am still frequenting late night jazz bars and drinking raki with rebellious anarchists at the age of 73 – it’s quite an achievement.