Plaka & Ancient Agora, Athens

Plaka has been lived in from antiquity to the present, and streets such as Adrianou and Tripodon follow ancient routes. The area grew up largely around the ruins of the old civic centre, and its name was first used for the district around the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. After a fire in 1884 destroyed much of the neighbourhood, archaeologists were able to excavate the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library.

The Ancient Agora below was the political, commercial and social centre of Classical Athens, crossed by the Panathenaic Way that led up to the Acropolis. The American School of Classical Studies at Athens began excavating it in 1931, and in the 1950s rebuilt the Hellenistic Stoa of Attalos, originally a gift of King Attalos II in the 2nd century BC, to house the site museum.

Nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule also left their mark. The Fethiye Mosque on the north side of the Roman Agora, now dated to around 1668-1670, is today an exhibition venue, and the domed Tzistarakis Mosque of 1759 on Monastiraki Square serves as an annex of the Museum of Greek Folk Art. In the 19th century, builders from the Cycladic island of Anafi settled under the Acropolis and created the Anafiotika quarter.

Plaka is a residential neighbourhood as well as a visitor hotspot, and you will see neighbours chatting outside small chapels and cats sunning themselves on steps. Easter is especially moving here, as candlelit processions wind between the old churches. Monastiraki, by contrast, is loud and lively, a crossroads of street traders, musicians and Athenians shopping for bargains.