At last your dream came true. You traveled to Athens, the capital of Greece, the cradle of ancient civilization, and traveled so many kilometers to find the Acropolis sacred rock and admire the Parthenon Temple of Athena Goddess built 2500 years ago. This is where great philosophers and wise men taught their knowledge spread throughout the world. At Greek Travel Family we make a series of guided tours of the city and sightseeing that a tourist would like to visit to facilitate your tour of Athens. We will tour the Acropolis of Athens at the most important monument of ancient history, admiring the Parthenon and the Caryatids, tour the new Acropolis Museum, walk the most beautiful street of Athens, Dionysios Arapagitou and down the stairs Sacred rock of the Acropolis.
A walk at Dionysiou Aeropagitou Street, the most beautiful street in Athens
A Sunday morning the family went on a lovely walk in Athens, and specifically a walk at the city’s prettiest street, Dionysiou Aeropagitou Street, which is located below Acropolis. We thought that the easiest, fastest and better way to begin with our walk was to take the subway, in order to avoid searching for a parking space.
The name of the stop that we disembarked was “Acropolis“. The poster of Melina Merkouri welcomed us with “a hug full of flowers”. However, the statues did us the honour of “welcoming” us. Those statues are copies of the sculpts of Parthenon and are displayed on the subway’s interior, together with many objects and ancient findings, that were discovered during the construction, really making the station, a small archaeological museum. We headed to the exit and by coming out from the underground station, the bright sun dazzled us. It was that kind of sun, that makes everything look beautiful.
The pedestrian zone of Makrigiannis Street was full of people. Some of them were rushing off, some were strolling around and some others were enjoying their coffee at the beautiful cafeteria’s of the area. A multi-coloured lovely world, a feast for the eyes. Immediately, our eye went to the Sacred Rock of Acropolis and we were gazing Acropolis with Parthenon standing up on its imposing walls.
Read also on Greek Travel Family
A guided tour around Athens with a Hop on Hop off bus(Opens in a new browser tab)
Athens: On the Filopappou Hill admiring the Acropolis(Opens in a new browser tab)
We arrived at the pedestrian zone of Dionysiou Aeropagitou Street, this lovely footpath and, for a moment, we envied the people hopping on the Happy Trains and the four-seater bicycles for a peaceful, relaxing and nice ride to the archaeological sites around. However, we didn’t get carried away despite all the requests of our youngster, who would definitely enjoy the ride with the Happy Train, because we came there for another purpose.
This was, after our walk, to visit Acropolis and walk in the footsteps of ancient Greeks, at the same place they walked, sat, philosophised, prayed, met with the other philosophers and normal people of Ancient Greece.
For decades, archaeologists and urban planners wanted to connect all the archaeological sites of the historic centre, in order to become a large outdoor museum, a walk through our history and its monuments. Pedestrianisation was an idea aroun the 80’s, when the Minister of Culture was Melina Merkouri, and became a reality after many years. This project delivered at 2003.
While we were walking at the pedestrian zone of Dionysiou Aeropagitou, monuments and works loomed on the right, carrying a history of 2500 years, while on the left we were beholding palaces and buildings of the 19th and 20th century. During that era, neoclassicism dominated in Athens, and Aeropagitou Street is an exquisite sample of that era, that deemed to be a heritage, which today we can admire. The buildings, side by side, with the most beautiful city’s view to the Parthenon, compete each other in architecture, in holding the sceptre of beauty and perfection.
Read also on Greek Travel Family
Explore the Acropolis Museum with kids(Opens in a new browser tab)
Travel to Athens: A guided visit at the New Acropolis Museum(Opens in a new browser tab)
Athens: the Parthenon!!(Opens in a new browser tab)
The area is one of the most expensive in the world! Why? Because the view to the Sacred Rock is dear. A lot of Greeks and foreigners are dreaming of such a housed with view at Acropolis, but few are the ones enjoying it. They prefer the building with number 27 or 19. I don’t know, maybe. Well, I prefer all of them! They are jewels missing from us and take us back, reminiscing about the beauty of an old era.
But where did this wonderful and expensive pedestrian zone took its name? The pedestrian zone took its name in honour of Dionysios Aeropagitis, who was the bishop of Athens.
Dionysios Aeropagitis is the patron Saint of Athens. He was born in Athens at 9 A.D. He was among the first that believed in Jesus Christ. He was baptised with his family at 52 A.D. He served as bishop of the city of Athens and in his honour the pedestrian zone round Acropolis crossing the rock of Areopagus was named after him.
Our walk in the most beautiful street of Athens of 19th century came to its end, to the point where Dionysiou Aeropagitou becomes Apostolou Pavlou. There we had the options of either going up passing by the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and visiting Acropolis of Athens, or following the nice pedestrian zone and going up to Philopappou Hill, in order to admire the city Athens from above and take amazing pictures with Acropolis as a background, or walking down and get to the enchanting district of Athens, Plaka.
If you like it, Pin It!
