Athens Highlights Private Half-Day Tour

The Athens half-day tour starts with a visit to the Acropolis where you will see the Parthenon, the temple on top of the sacred rock devoted to Goddess Athena, the Goddess of wisdom, the Propylea, the entrance to the sacred rock, the Temple of Wingless Victory which was devoted to Goddess Athena-Nike, the Erechtheum, the most sacred and mythical of all the temples of Athens with its famous Caryatides (female featured statues), the 5000-seat Odeon of Herodes Atticus which was carved into the rock and is still used for music festivals, the 13000-seat theatre of Dionysus where the Athenians listened to the immortal works of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes. We will continue our tour by visiting the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Panathinaic Stadium (where the Olympic Games were held for the first time in modern Athens in 1896), the Parliament, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the changing of the guards. Then we will drive through University Street that connects Constitution (Syntagma) Square with Concord (Omonia) Square - the second most important square in Athens and see the Academy, the University and the National Library followed by a drive up to Lycabettus Hill (highest point of Athens) where you can enjoy a panoramic view of Athens. Our last visit will be at the new Acropolis museum. The new Acropolis museum is under the south slope of the Acropolis and contains mostly pediment sculpture, reliefs, and statues found on the sacred rock of Acropolis, which formed most of its decoration. Among these statues, the well-known female figures with the characteristic archaic smile called ‘Korai’ such as the Kore of Naxos, the Kore of Chios, and the Kore of Lyons etc. There are also sphinxes, consecrated reliefs such as that of Athena in Medication and consecrated sculptures such as the Moschoforos (a man who is carrying a calf across his shoulders), the Boy of Kritias Etc.