The Acropolis of Athens

The Propylaea

The gateway is the only way onto the rock, because the Acropolis is steep and inaccessible on every side but the west. Mnesicles built it as a threshold, and the Parthenon does not reveal itself until you are through. The Ottomans stored gunpowder inside the buildings on the rock, and when Venetian shells hit the Parthenon's store in 1687 the explosion turned the temple into a ruin.

The Propylaea survived that blast, which is why the entrance still reads as the ancients intended it. Practically, give yourself a few minutes here rather than hurrying through. The marble underfoot has been polished by generations of visitors and is genuinely slippery when wet, so watch your step on the central ramp, especially after rain or early in the morning.

It is also the narrowest point on the site, so queues form here at opening.

The Parthenon

Iktinos and Kallikrates designed it, Phidias made the sculpture, and Pericles paid for it out of a building programme that also existed to put Athenians to work at a drachma a day. Inside stood a colossal gold-and-ivory Athena that has been lost since antiquity. Half the surviving sculptural decoration was removed by Lord Elgin and is in the British Museum; what remains in Greece is downhill in the Acropolis Museum. The Parthenon page goes into the building itself.

The Erechtheion and the Caryatids

This irregular temple stands on the north side of the hill, built over the oldest cults on the Acropolis, including that of Athena Polias and the spot where Poseidon's trident was said to have struck. Its south porch is carried by six draped female figures, and this is the most photographed corner on the rock after the Parthenon itself. Know what you are looking at: the figures on site are casts.

Five originals went to the Acropolis Museum when it opened in 2009, and the sixth was taken to London in the 19th century, part of the removals by Lord Elgin that also took 15 metopes and 56 frieze blocks from the Parthenon. The white plaster casts elsewhere in the museum mark where those London blocks should sit. Plan the museum visit for after the summit, when the casts will mean more.

The Temple of Athena Nike

Small, Ionic, and easy to walk past. It stands on the bastion to the right of the Propylaea as you climb, and most visitors queue for the gateway without turning their heads. The temple has been taken apart and rebuilt more than once, most recently in the 2000s, so what you see is a careful reassembly rather than an untouched survivor.

The pieces were dismantled and put back as conservation work on the Acropolis has proceeded block by block. The famous parapet relief, including the figure of Nike adjusting her sandal, is not here at all but in the Acropolis Museum, so do not search the bastion for it. The viewpoint from the bastion over the entrance below is one of the better ones on the site, and it takes no extra time since you pass it anyway on the way up.

The south slope: two theatres

Both theatres sit inside the same fence and on the same ticket, and people skip them because they come down the west side after the Parthenon. Enter or leave through the south instead. The Theatre of Dionysus is where Athenian tragedy was first performed, which makes it the birthplace of a form the whole world still watches.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is the steep Roman semicircle you see from below, on Dionysiou Areopagitou, the avenue pedestrianised in 2003 before the 2004 Games. In summer the Odeon is closed to daytime visitors because it hosts concerts, so see it early or from the fence. If your visit falls on a heatwave day, note that the ministry has repeatedly closed open-air sites through the hottest hours. The Odeon page covers the performance season.

The seasonal timetable

Daily 08:00 to 20:00 from 1 April to 31 August; 08:00 to 19:30 from 1 to 15 September; 08:00 to 19:00 from 16 to 30 September; 08:00 to 18:30 from 1 to 15 October; 08:00 to 18:00 from 16 to 31 October; and 08:00 to 17:00 from 1 November to 31 March. Last admission is twenty minutes before closing in every band — a 16:40 arrival in December is an arrival at a closed gate. Every seasonal table in the city sits together on the opening-hours page.

Closed days

The site shuts on 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Orthodox Easter Sunday, and 25 and 26 December. Orthodox Easter moves each year and rarely coincides with the Western date, so check the calendar for the year you travel rather than assuming the weekends line up. Two other dates work differently.

On the free-admission days, which include 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, 28 October and the last weekend of September, the site opens but the queues are longer because everyone else has had the same idea. The Acropolis Museum keeps its own list, free on 6 March, 25 March, 18 May and 28 October, because it is a separate legal entity from the state sites with its own hours. Winter brings shorter opening too, with the Acropolis running to 17:00 from 1 November.

Which hour to book

The first hour, in any month you can. In summer the sun is on the rock by nine and there is nowhere to stand out of it; by noon the marble reflects heat back at you. The other good window is the last ninety minutes before closing in April, May, September and October, when the light is low and the coaches have gone — but not in winter, when closing is 17:00 and the site empties fast.

Coach groups arrive between about 09:30 and 11:30.

How long it takes

Ninety minutes on the rock at a normal pace, including the climb and the time people actually spend photographing the Parthenon. That figure holds only if you arrive at a quiet hour, because the narrow Propylaea funnels every visitor through one gateway and the crowds slow everything down. Add half an hour for the two theatres on the south slope, which are on the same ticket and shamefully easy to skip.

Add another two hours if you go straight on to the Acropolis Museum, which is where the originals of many summit pieces now live, including five of the six Caryatids. Build in slack for summer heat, since the ministry has closed open-air sites from around midday to 17:00 during official heatwaves, announced at short notice. Anyone planning a single day should read the one-day plan before fixing the hour.

The climb from the south gate to the Propylaea is about twenty minutes on its own, so no honest version of this visit is under ninety minutes. What separates the three routings is the south slope and what you do afterwards.

Whichever you pick, the ten-minute walk downhill to the Acropolis Museum adds about two more hours and is the natural second half of the morning. Doing both in one push is a four-and-a-half-hour outing before lunch, which is why the one-day plan puts the rock at 08:00 and nothing else before noon.

South entrance, Dionysiou Areopagitou

The main gate sits on the pedestrian avenue below the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, about twelve minutes on foot from Akropoli metro station on Line 2. It takes most of the traffic, it has the ticket office and the shop, and it sets you on the south-slope path, so you pass the Theatre of Dionysus and the Odeon on the way up rather than leaving them for a tired return trip. This is the default for first-time visitors.

The avenue itself dates from the 2003 pedestrianisation under the Unification of the Archaeological Sites programme, the scheme Melina Mercouri pushed as culture minister, finished before the 2004 Games. One warning: this entrance carries the queues, so at opening time the line here can be long. The ticket office means you can buy on the spot, but pre-booking saves the wait.

West entrance, below the Propylaea

The smaller gate at the top of the ramp on the west side, reached from Thiseio or Monastiraki past the Areopagus rock. It is a shorter climb from the top of the ramp and it is usually quieter, but the walk to it is uphill and there is no ticket office worth queuing at. Use it if you are coming from the Ancient Agora side, or if the south gate is backed up.

Step-free access

A lift on the north face carries visitors with reduced mobility to the summit, approached from the west side. The official page lists accessibility among the site's amenities, but plan the visit around two realities. The surface on top is uneven ancient rock and marble whatever route you take, so a companion helps on the summit paths, and wheelchair users should expect rough ground between the monuments.

The lift is machinery on a 2,500-year-old rock, and it does not run in every condition. Confirm it is in service on the day by calling the site guardhouse on +30 210 3214172 before you travel, because there is no alternative way up for anyone who cannot manage the climb. During official heatwaves the ministry has closed open-air sites through the hottest hours, roughly midday to 17:00, which applies to lift visitors as much as anyone.

What you cannot bring in

Large luggage, food, and professional photography or filming equipment are all turned away at the gate. There is no cloakroom, so a big bag is a genuine problem rather than an inconvenience, and the nearest solution is the bag you leave at your hotel. Pack light.

Do bring water, because a fountain stands near the entrance and there is nothing on the summit, where the sun hits bare rock with no shade. On heatwave days the ministry has closed the site through the hottest hours, roughly midday to 17:00, so go early and carry more water than you think you need. Wear flat shoes with grip, because the polished marble underfoot is the most common cause of a fall up there, and it is worse in the wet.

Tripods count as professional equipment, so leave them behind.

- The famous explosion was the second one. Powder stored in the Propylaea was set off by lightning in 1645 and wrecked the gateway forty-two years before the Venetian shell reached the Parthenon in 1687. (Acropolis Museum, Museum History; ysma.gr) - The Temple of Athena Nike was demolished by its own garrison. In 1686, facing Morosini's army, the Ottomans took the temple apart and used the blocks to reinforce the walls and build a rampart in front of the Propylaea; what stands today was rebuilt from that material, most recently in the 2000s. (Acropolis Museum, Museum History) - The Caryatids stood outdoors until 1979. The Committee for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments began with the Erechtheion and pulled the figures off the porch to stop the weathering; the ones on the building have been casts ever since.

(Acropolis Museum, Museum History) - You can have the rock to yourself, at a price. ODAP itself sells an out-of-hours Acropolis Experience at $5,811 (€5,000) for a group of up to five, at 06:00 or 20:00 on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 1 April to 31 October — four groups at a time, non-refundable. Anything advertised as a private after-hours Acropolis tour for less than that is not this product. (tickets.hh.gr, Acropolis Experience) - The Evzones come up here too. The Presidential Guard raises and lowers the flag on the Acropolis on Sundays and official holidays, a small ceremony almost nobody schedules for — the guard's own page has the Syntagma timings.

(presidency.gr)

Food is on the prohibited list at the entrance along with large luggage and professional camera gear, so the visit is water only — carry more of it than seems sensible in summer, because the fountain is near the gate and the summit has none. The nearest sit-down option is ten minutes downhill: the ground-floor café at the Acropolis Museum needs no ticket at all, so you can walk in off Dionysiou Areopagitou, and the second-floor restaurant, which faces the rock, needs only a free admission ticket from the desk. Otherwise the pedestrian avenue leads west into Koukaki and Makrygianni, where the tavernas charge ordinary prices, or east into Plaka, where the terraces charge for the view. Where to eat in Athens is blunt about the difference.