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The sacred rock of the Acropolis dominates Plaka, and its different temples are clearly visible from all angles throughout the neighbourhood. Legend holds that it was on this rock that Athena (see Athena) won dominion of Athens from Poseidon, and it has been devoted to worshipping the goddess since 650 BC. (see Acropolis, Archaeological Sites - Acropolis)

This all-glass $100 million showpiece, designed by internationally renowned architect Bernard Tschumi and opening in 2007, is meant to give a fitting home to Greece’s greatest treasures: the marble sculptures that once adorned the Acropolis, especially the mighty Parthenon. (Until the New Museum opens, these sculptures will still be housed in the small on-site Acropolis museum.) (see New Acropolis Museum, Archaeological Sites - New Acropolis Museum and Museums - New Acropolis Museum)

Clinging to the side of the Acropolis is Athens’ loveliest and quirkiest hidden neighbourhood. It was built in the 19th century by tradesmen from the Cycladic island of Anafi, brought to Athens after the War of Independence to build King Otto’s palace. They missed home so much that they decided to re-create a pocket of it here, all island-style, dome-topped blue-and-white houses, covered with banks of bougainvillea, in a maze of tiny passageways. Many descendents of the original Anafi workers still live here.

Julius Caesar and Augustus were founders of this Roman marketplace, which replaced the original Greek Agora, and their names are inscribed on the grand Gate of Athena Archegetis. But its most striking feature, the Tower of the Winds, was built in 50 BC, 100 years earlier. There is no other building like it in the ancient world: eight-sided, each side sculpted with a personification of the winds and their names inscribed: Boreas, Kaikias, Apeliotes, Euros, Notos, Lips, Zephyros and Skiron. (see Roman Forum, Roman Forum and Tower of the Winds)

This unassuming museum is a great treasure. Here you can see and hear the Middle Eastern and European influences on Greek music, and how Greeks transformed them into something of their own. The instruments themselves are beautiful, often intricately inlaid with silver, ivory and tortoise-shell. It is also an ethno-musicology study centre, and there are occasional courtyard performances. (see Museum of Greek Musical Instruments)

Enormous, lavishly appointed Athens Cathedral is one of the city’s best-known landmarks. The archbishop of Greece (often cited as the nation’s most influential person) gives addresses here, and it is regularly packed when Athens’ high society come for weddings and baptisms. Of far greater artistic importance, though, is tiny Panagia Gorgoepikoos (“little Metropoli”), next door. The 12th-century church is built of Roman and Byzantine marble relics, depicting 90 scenes of ancient feasts. (see Mitropoli)

The dimly lit, government-run building won’t win prizes, but inside are five floors packed with rich, beautiful folk art, from jewellery to decorate and cover the entire body to fine embroideries worked with gold and silver thread. There’s also a room of wall paintings by prim-itivist painter Theofilos Khatz-mikhail. (see Museum of Greek Folk Art)

At some point everyone passes through this green, shady plateia, lined with cafés both old-world and trendy. Try To Tristato for Victorian ambience and heavenly teas and cakes, or Kydatheneon for a view of the scene. Catch a rooftop movie and Acropolis view at Cine Paris. Relax on benches in the almost-hidden stone-paved centre. Neo-Classical buildings peer over tree-tops at the whole scene.

All that remains of Greece’s largest temple, a shrine to Zeus, is 16 columns. But standing alone, silhouetted by the bright Attic sky, their majesty still overwhelms. Inside the temple was a colossal gold-and-ivory sculpture of the god, a copy of the one at Olympus, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. (see Temple of Olympian Zeus)

Next to the parched Acropolis rock, pine-and-cypress-clad Filopappos Hill offers a cool, green place to stroll. The peak is marked by the tomb and monument of Roman senator and philhellene Gaius Julius Antiochus Filopappos, and distinguished by sweeping views from the Acropolis to the sea. In summer, the Dora Stratou Dance Troupe puts on nightly performances of Greek folk dances in a theatre nestled among the pines. (see Filopappos Hill)