Handpicked experience · Athens
Athens, Greece
An 1886 market hall that barely closes, a resin grown on one island only, and a city whose cooking arrived with a million refugees in 1922.
Witness the changing of the guards in front of the Monument of The Unknown Soldier and Hellenic Parliament.
Admire the grand entrance, Propylaea, to the Parthenon temple.
Gaze at the solemn Temple of Athena Nike, the first and smallest structure that was built on the Acropolis.
Delight in the beauty of Parthenon temple and appreciate its Ionic architectural features.
Visit the Acropolis Museum to explore the fascinating collections from the Athenian Acropolis.
The covered market, where the olives, herbs and produce come from
Signature sweets including bougatsa and loukoumades
A gyro or savoury street-food stop in the old centre
A group capped at sixteen for a proper conversation
Three easy-paced hours through the city's eating neighbourhoods
Three hours walking the food streets of central Athens with a guide and a group of no more than sixteen, taking in the covered market, the spice street beside it and a run of tasting stops. Come hungry; this is lunch spread across a neighbourhood.
You meet in the centre and walk between stops at an easy pace, eating as you go — bougatsa, loukoumades, olives, a gyro somewhere in the middle. The guide handles the ordering and explains what you are eating. Nothing about the route is strenuous; the difficulty is pacing yourself.
The central market is a nineteenth-century iron and glass hall built to bring the city's meat and fish trade under one roof, and it has been running ever since. The fish side is loud and wet and worth walking through even if you buy nothing. Traders have historically worked through the night here, and the tavernas tucked inside the building serve the people finishing a shift at hours that suit nobody else.
One street along, the shops sell herbs, dried mountain tea, saffron, and mastic — a resin tapped from trees that grow commercially on one Greek island and nowhere else on earth. It has been chewed, distilled and baked into desserts for two thousand years, and Athens is one of the few places you can buy it as raw crystals from a sack.
In 1922 and 1923, over a million Greeks arrived from Asia Minor after the population exchange, and the city roughly doubled in size. They brought their food with them, and much of what is now regarded as Athenian eating — the layered pastries, the coffee culture, the spicing — came with those families. The city's food map is a map of that arrival.
Loukoumades are balls of dough fried and drowned in honey and cinnamon, and something very close to them appears in ancient sources as a sweet handed to victors at the games. If that lineage holds, you are eating a recipe with a two-and-a-half-thousand-year run, which is not something you can say about many street snacks.
Greece has the highest per-head olive oil consumption in the world, several times the European average, and the market stalls reflect it — barrels, tins, tastings, and strong opinions about which region's oil is worth the trouble. The olives themselves come in more varieties than most visitors know exist.
Three hours of walking on flat streets with regular stops. Tell the guide about any allergies before you start rather than at the first stop. Cancellation is free up to seventy-two hours ahead.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Enough to replace lunch. Tastings run across several stops — bougatsa, loukoumades, olives and a gyro among them — spread over three hours rather than served at once.
A nineteenth-century iron and glass building opened in 1886 to bring the city's meat and fish trade under one roof. It has run ever since, historically through the night, and the tavernas inside serve at hours that suit shift workers.
A resin tapped from trees that grow commercially on a single Greek island and nowhere else. It has been chewed, distilled and baked into desserts for two thousand years, and the spice street sells it as raw crystals.
Because over a million Greeks arrived from Asia Minor in 1922 and 1923 after the population exchange, roughly doubling the city. The layered pastries, the coffee culture and much of the spicing came with them.
Something very close to loukoumades appears in ancient sources as a sweet handed to victors at the games, which would give the recipe a run of some two and a half thousand years.
Tell the guide at the start rather than at the first stop, and the tastings can be steered around most restrictions.
Not at all — flat streets, an easy pace and regular stops across three hours.