Athens: A metropolis pulsating with life

In the last few years, a slogan has spread worldwide: "Let's go to Athens."

Athens is no longer only for the ancient monuments on the Acropolis and all the surrounding archaeological sites that illuminated world history, such as the Acropolis Museum, Plaka, or Monastiraki.

It is not the many old-fashioned stereotypes that foreign channels still show when they show reports about the Greek capital - such as souvlaki and moussaka.

A new Athens emerges year after year thanks to the new generation and the many and large investments made with imagination, good taste, and influences from the metropolises of Europe.

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There are brand new five-star boutique and art hotels, countless Airbnbs, cafes, bars, and restaurants serving cuisines from all over the world, gourmet street food, clothes shopping, the display of works by Greek artists, and excellent Greek products.

The new pedestrian network made the entire historic centre easily accessible. The neoclassical buildings house excellent museums: modern galleries, art multiplexes, small theatre stages, thematic museums, and so much more.

Whole areas were differentiated from each other so that everyone could choose the style that suited them, such as the historical Monastiraki, the traditional Plaka, the cosmopolitan Kolonaki, and Syntagma, which has the most branded stores of big fashion houses, renovated historical arcades and expensive restaurants.

Dionysiou Areopagitou was the most beautiful pedestrian promenade in the ancient and neoclassical past of the city, and today passes by the New Acropolis Museum, the Theatre of Dionysos, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the entrance to the archaeological site of the Acropolis and the Thision.

Ermou always maintains the sceptre of the classic shopping street for the ultimate shopping therapy.

The square of Agia Irini emerged from the city's past to become the centre of evening entertainment for young people and the surrounding streets, which pulsate in the evenings with the beat music of the bars.

And of course, Syntagma, with the large metro station, the Parliament and luxurious historical hotels like Grande Bretagne, remains the navel of the city and the starting point for all walks in the centre.

Small new "cities" seem to be emerging in the centre of Athens. A meeting point for everyone, where the traditional neighbourhoods are still preserved (a bet that remains to be won so that the city does not become a tourist scene and prohibitive for Athenians - as already happens in the tourist season).

However you see it, as an Athenian or a tourist, the capital is an enviable European metropolis—a destination to visit more than once.

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