The upper lanes
Quiet and climbing to the Acropolis โ better than the shopping street.
Joanbanjo โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท David Dennis โ CC BY-SA 2.0 ยท George E. Koronaios โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท George E. Koronaios โ CC BY-SA 4.0
The rule is simple: **avoid any restaurant with a tout at the door or a photographed menu in ten languages**, and those cluster on Adrianou and the main streets. Climb into the upper lanes towards the Acropolis, or drop into neighbouring **Psyrri** and **Monastiraki**. Look for places with Greeks eating in them, a short menu and clearly written prices. โ And always ask the price before ordering anywhere that offers you "fresh fish" by weight โ that is the best-known bill trap in Athens.
**Anafiotika** is a small pocket inside Plaka right at the foot of the Acropolis rock, and it is quite unlike its surroundings: little whitewashed cubic houses with blue doors and narrow stairs โ the architecture of the **Aegean islands**, not of Athens. The reason is that builders from the island of **Anafi** came in the nineteenth century to work on the king's palace and built themselves houses in their island's manner in this corner. The result is that two minutes' walk from Plaka you find yourself in a Greek island village under the Acropolis. Walk in โ no cars, no tickets.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.
The oldest continuously inhabited quarter of Athens, called "the neighbourhood of the gods" because it lies directly beneath the **Acropolis** on its north-eastern slope. Walking it is the best free thing to do in the city. What distinguishes it is that people **never stopped living here** since antiquity: Roman and Byzantine remains lie under its houses, and its streets follow the lines of the ancient city. Most of what you see today is nineteenth century, when elegant neoclassical houses went up after Greek independence. The quarter is **almost car-free**: narrow stone-paved lanes, staircases, bougainvillea climbing the walls, cafรฉs in small squares, and little Byzantine churches hidden between the houses. At its eastern edge is **Adrianou Street** with the souvenir shops โ the loud commercial part โ while the upper lanes towards the Acropolis are quiet and far lovelier. โ A practical warning: restaurants with photographed menus and touts at the door on the main streets are **touristy, weak and expensive**. Go two lanes away and you eat better for half the price.
Quiet and climbing to the Acropolis โ better than the shopping street.
Small centuries-old churches hidden between the houses.
Nineteenth-century building after Greek independence.
Plaka, 10556 Athens