Planning to travel to Greece? do not miss the Acropolis of Athens. We give you information to make the visit and we tell you what you can see.
It may sound very traditional, but when going to Athens it is almost MANDATORY to visit the famous Acropolis. The day chosen for our visit, the weather smiled at us and we had sun and blue skies. How lucky! With everything in our favor we went to visit the Acropolis in Athens and here we well tell you what can you expect to see in your visit.
The Acropolis of Athens was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1987
Information to visit the Acropolis
How much is it?
Entrance to the Acropolis alone costs 20 euros. There is also a combined ticket of 30 euros that includes other monuments such as the Olimpeion, the Roman Agora, the ancient Agora, among others. Skip the lines by buying your tickets here.
What are the opening hours?
The Sanctuary can be visited from 8 AM to 8 PM
Arriving at the Acropolis
To get there (from Plaka) you have to go up, up and up. Visiting the Acropolis in Athens can turn into a sporting session 🙂 (perfect to beat the buffet breakfast).
A piece of advice for our readers: before starting to climb, go to the nearest ATM and withdraw cash. Since they don’t accept cards at the ticket office, so if you don’t have cold hard cash you have to go find an ATM and go down (not much, you have to go down the south side and the ATM is at the level of the tourist trucks ) to then go back up (with the consequent loss of time and energy).
While I was waiting for Vincent, I noticed that there is a post office right in front of the ticket office: they sell all kinds of official postcards and, of course, it is quite convenient to send a postcard directly from the Acropolis.
In certain parts of the route you can see the sea in the distance, at the time when we went it was cold and the weather was not conducive to taking the ferries to go to the islands.
What to see in the Acropolis? our visit
And unlike Delphi, to visit the Acropolis in Athens the tour guides were canines, there were many puppies (with collars) in the area, and they were very friendly. Although if what you require are human guides to carry out your visit, do not miss this guided tour of the Acropolis or if you prefer to take this guided tour together with a tour of the city, you can take this Athens City and Acropolis Guided Tour.
Let’s start the tour: upon entering the first thing you see are some stairs, which you have to climb. We were lucky, it was low season and there were very few people. I had seen photos of high season and these stairs were packed with people.
The Propylaea
The Propylaea were the grandiose entrance to the Acropolis. They were built between 437 and 432 BC. It was a central rectangular building made up of columns and several access doors. It was basically the first thing people who came to this area saw. And the first thing we saw too.
Porch of the Caryatids
Following our path we find the Erechtheum temple that was built in honor of Athena, Poseidon and Erechtheus. This was one of the places that I most wanted to see in the Acropolis (after the Parthenon) since it is there where you can see the Porch of the Caryatids.
Those famous statues that are seen in countless posters, books, etc. that make you want to go to Greece represent the women of the city of Caryatid, in the Peloponnese. I finally had them in front of me, although they are not the original statues, these are replicas because the originals are in the museum to preserve them from erosion. It doesn’t matter, it was nice to see them there anyway.
In the distance we could see the Likavitos mountain which has a castle on top.
The Parthenon
We keep walking and we reach the area of the Parthenon. This temple was built between 447 to 432 AD and is dedicated to the protector of Athens, Athena Parthenos. It continued to be a religious temple despite the fact that the area passed from hand to hand, that is, it was used as a Byzantine and Latin church and even a Muslim mosque.
Unfortunately, when it passed into the hands of the Turks, they used it as a gunpowder deposit and in a conflict, the material contained in the temple exploded and caused much damage. Sad since, according to the story, until then the place had been preserved quite well.
Luckily there is something left of the place standing and there we were in front of him. And it wasn’t full of scaffolding 🙂 plus we almost had it to ourselves. That’s the good thing about getting there early.
This is definitely the answer if someone asks what to see in Acropolis? but of course all must be seen.
When we go out we can see the offices and machinery of the people who work for the reconstruction (I imagine there will be archaeologists too). And in the distance we can see one of the many protest marches that took place due to the situation in Greece. Because really, from there you have a complete view of the city.
And before we leave, a photo of the Parthenon again, this time with the Greek flag.
To finish the tour I leave you with some photos of the canine tour guides who were having a well-deserved rest outside the enclosure 🙂 . And with this we said goodbye to the Acropolis, but the day of archaeological visits did not end there, the next destination was the Theater of Dionysus.
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