//
Photo: Chabe01, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The site of the ancient city centre is a green space with a beautiful view of the Acropolis. It was built as a multipurpose area, then evolved into a religious area over time. The Ancient Agora was eventually abandoned and then large parts of it were later built over for a thousand years. The open space you see today was excavated starting in the 1850s.
The Ancient Agora of Athens is an ancient Greek agora. It is located to the northwest of the Acropolis, and bounded on the south by the hill of the Areopagus and on the west by the hill known as the Agoraios Kolonos, also called Market Hill. The Agora's initial use was for a commercial, assembly, or residential gathering place.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
The best preserved ancient Greek temple, 5th century BCE.
Museum of the Ancient Agora
This building was reconstructed in the 1950s from its original foundations, incorporating as much of the original structure and materials as possible, with limestone quarried from Piraeus and roof tiles made of clay from Attica. It is used as a museum to house relics found in the Agora.
Agias Apostoli
From the 11th century, one of the oldest churches in Athens.
Roman Forum
This area became the main marketplace of the city after the Ancient Agora to the west became primarily a religious facility under Roman rule. It houses the Tower of the Winds, an eight-sided tower with a different wind deity on each side, the remains of ancient shops, and a fountain. Although the official entrance faces the end of Pikilis, you cannot buy tickets at the entrance. The ticket office is just around the corner and across the street to the north, on Epaminonda.
A small but excellent museum displays artifacts from Mycenean Greece on, and includes some wonderful Persian artifacts.
It was the ancient fortified town of Athens, dating back to the Late Bronze Age. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its historic role and the many iconic buildings of the Greek Classical age, among them the Parthenon, the Erectheion, and the Temple of Athena Nike. The key landmark of Athens, visible from afar, the Acropolis dominates the Athenian sky and symbolizes the foundation of modern culture and civilization. The Acropolis is considered to be an enduring symbol of Western civilisation.