Hi all! Last year I was lucky enough on my round the world adventure to visit Greece for a short while, including the capital Athens. Athens has a number of historic sights to visit, and they will be covered in a different blog but today I wanted to focus solely on Athens’ most visited sight, it’s most well known sight and probably the first thing people think of when they think of Athens, and that is the Acropolis.

The Acropolis dates back to the fifth century BC, a citadel on top of a hill that overlooks modern Athens today. A place of governance back in the day for the country considered to be the birthplace of democracy. The main building in the Acropolis is the Parthenon which is a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. Basically, you can’t visit Athens without visiting the Acropolis, can you? (well technically obviously you CAN, you’d just be missing out.

I visited this on my first full day in Athens, after arriving by Wizz Air the previous afternoon. I had travelled over two and half days from Jamaica and my body was not sure what time zone I was in, and despite an early bedtime the previous night I struggled to wake and get myself out into the city before 11am.

I took the metro, which is pretty decent in Athens, to the stop ‘Acropoli’. Handy that they named it so clearly. I had checked the prices online, but decided to go and buy the ticket at the entrance, which was a short walk from Acropoli station.

It’s at the foot of the hill, not the only similar hill in Athens – they seem to spring up out of nowhere. It’s only 200 metres from the metro (the entrance) and straight away I was stuck by the length of the queue. It turned out this was the queue for people with tickets to get in, and that every so often they let people in and paused, presumably to regulate the number of people up at the top of the Acropolis. The ticket buying was fast and easy, and at 30 Euros not the cheapest thing in town.

Generally speaking I found Athens not to be expensive, especially compared to standard Western European prices, but to enter the sights it was. Not that on reflection 30 Euros is outrageous by any stretch of the imagination, and in the winter (off peak) it’s only 20. Keep in mind that if you want to visit the Acropolis Museum, which I didn’t, that will be an additional 20 Euro for an adult (although Google AI says 15 Euro, their website says otherwise!) so whereas 30 Euro as a one off might not seem so expensive, but other sites are also around 20 Euro so if you want to cram in several in a day you could be up for a lot of money and if you are on any sort of budget it could be blown and you haven’t yet eaten!

There are some combo tickets for various sights, but I don’t know much about them but I saw a couple of people with them and they didn’t save them too much. I had a list of things to see and most weren’t too expensive or free – and there’s loads of walking around cool things to do in Athens that doesn’t cost you, so it’s about priorities really and Acropolis was priority number one for this blogger lol!

I mean really, that’s the crux of the post. I join the line after getting my ticket that goes up the road, but within five minutes they have let people in and I got through. Straight away you’re on the other side of this fence along the road, in a sort of garden looking up at the Acropolis from the foot of the hill. The walk to the entrance isn’t super steep and the good news is on that walk you stop for a number of different ruins to admire and I guess photograph.

The first is the Theatre of Dionysus, the Temple of Themis and some columns arranged under shelter before you hit the first really impressive sight and that is the Odeon of Herrodes Atticus, a large amphitheatre that appears to still have performances and therefore has had a fair bit of restoration over the years too. You have a fair view of Athen through that.

The final ascent is upon you and you make your way to the Acropolis proper entrance, called the Propylaea. This impressive combination of stairs, columns, doorways and more is where you first realise just how many people are visiting. Selfies are being taken left right and centre and guides are talking through a few facts with their groups. There weren’t THAT many guides actually that I noticed – I’m not a huge fan of guides personally, depending on the circumstances – some places it’s essential, but in places like this I fear I will hear an awful lot of information and almost none of it will be retained.

Once you’re at the top, well I was impressed for sure, but boy are there a LOT of visitors. It was May, not the height of the high season, well before school holidays and the like but still a lot of people.

The Parthenon is the biggest and most impressive/striking structure by a long way. It seems to have been propped up with scaffolding for a long time now (years) and last May at least you couldn’t actually enter it. You can capture it from all sides though. At the far end there is a Greek flag where everyone milled around for photos, and great views of the city from here and most points around the edge of the top. Some interesting parts of Athens just off the side of the Acropolis which make for great views and photos primarily of rooftops.

The other building of note is the Erechtheion, another temple, not as big but interesting connected to the Prostasis of Koron, with some interesting statues. There are a couple of other things too which I barely noticed and that’s because a couple of sturtcues are standing and the others – particularly the Temple of Rome and Augustus and the Sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia are basically crumbled bits and pieces and the feet of columns.

All in all though I stood there and was in awe. So basically, well worth it! Had the perfect day too, not too warm (mid 20s) and not a cloud in the sky. Thanks for popping by today! Next time I’llbe writing on the other things I saw in Athens! Take caer wherever you are in the world and… May the Journey Never End!