Plaka

Start at the Roman Agora, not at Monastiraki square

The square itself is a transport interchange with a flea market attached. Walk two minutes up Dioskouron to the fence of the Roman Agora, where the Gate of Athena Archegetis stands on the street line, and start there. From that corner the lanes climb and the traffic stops.

The Agora costs €10 (€5 reduced) and holds the Tower of the Winds, built in the 2nd or early 1st century BC by Andronicus of Cyrrhus. Its eight sides each carry a relief of one wind, with sundial lines below and a water clock inside. In winter, from 1 November, the site shuts at 15:00, so the morning is the time for this walk.

Tickets are non-refundable, though you may change the slot twice up to two hours before.

Up through the lanes

Adrianou is the long spine and the most commercial, and the lanes climbing off it to the right, Mnisikleous, Erechtheos and Tholou, are where the quarter is worth photographing. They are stepped, so this is not a wheelchair or a suitcase route. Keep climbing and you reach Anafiotika.

The little cluster was built from the 1840s by masons brought from the island of Anafi to work on King Otto's palace, who raised Cycladic houses on ground that was not theirs. About 45 of the houses survive, white-walled and flat-roofed like their island models. There is no ticket to walk the lanes.

Wear shoes with a grip, because the polished steps get slippery, and expect to lose your way, which is half the point.

Anafiotika

A cluster of about forty small whitewashed houses on the north face of the rock, built in the 1840s by stonemasons brought from Anafi in the Cyclades to work on King Otto's palace. They built what they knew, so the lanes are Cycladic — flat white walls, blue doors, bougainvillea, alleys a metre wide. It is residential and people live in it; go at eight in the morning and speak quietly.

Down to the Lysicrates Monument and out

The east side of the quarter is quieter. The Lysicrates Monument, a small circular marble structure of 334 BC that once carried a prize tripod, stands in its own square, and from there it is five minutes down to Dionysiou Areopagitou. That street was pedestrianised in 2003 under the Unification of the Archaeological Sites programme, the scheme Melina Mercouri pushed as culture minister, finished before the 2004 Games. The Acropolis Museum sits at the end of it.

It opened in 2009 on the Makriyianni plot, over an excavated ancient neighbourhood you can see through the glass floor at the entrance, included in the ticket. Entry is €20, with the €10 reduced ticket sold only at the desk.

What to avoid

The restaurants along the main lanes with a man outside holding a menu and a terrace angled at the rock. The food is usually competent and the price is roughly double what the same plates cost elsewhere in the centre, because you are paying for the terrace. That is not a scam, it is a view, correctly priced, but it is worth knowing you are buying it.

One more practical point about the view itself. During official heatwaves the culture ministry has closed the Acropolis and other open-air sites through the hottest hours, roughly midday to 17:00, sometimes announced only a day ahead. A terrace facing the rock in the afternoon of such a day may look out at a closed hill.

What works

Two streets off the main routes, on the Monastiraki side and up towards the Cathedral, there are ordinary tavernas and kafeneia at ordinary prices. The souvlaki counters around Mitropoleos, at the quarter's northern edge, are the cheap standing lunch of the whole city at about €4 a wrap. Walk a few minutes further and you reach the central market on Athinas, Varvakios, built about 1886 and paid for by a bequest from Ioannis Varvakis, a fighter of the War of Independence who made his fortune in caviar.

It opens to mid-afternoon Monday to Saturday and closes on Sundays, so time a meat-and-fish-hall wander accordingly. Where to eat in Athens has the vocabulary you need at the counter.

And the walk that solves it

Ten minutes north-west is Psyri, which is where Athenians actually eat after nine at night, at half the price and twice the noise. The quarter has form here. It was the rough ground of 19th-century Athens, home of the koutsavakides, the knife-carrying street men of the old city, and a certain loudness has never left it.

The walk from Plaka takes you past Monastiraki square, where the Tzistarakis mosque of 1759 stands. It was built by an Ottoman governor who was said to have pulled down a column of the Olympieion to burn for its lime. If you are staying in Plaka, walking out of it for dinner is the single best habit to form.

What you get

Five to ten minutes from the Acropolis south gate, everything walkable, and a lane outside your door that looks like the reason you came. For a two-night trip with the rock as the point, that is a strong case. The rock itself now costs €30 full or €15 reduced, so a morning walk to the gate rather than a metro ride takes some of the sting out of it.

Timing matters too. In winter, from 1 November, the Acropolis runs to 17:00 while the Olympieion, Roman Agora, Kerameikos and Aristotle's Lyceum close at 15:00, so a Plaka base puts the longer-closing sites inside a short stroll on short days.

What you pay

Room rates sit at the top of the central range, and there is a dinner problem every night unless you walk out. Suitcases on stepped lanes are also a real consideration: check whether your address is reachable on wheels before you book. Budget the difference against the sites you will actually pay for.

The Ancient Agora at the quarter's edge is €20 full and €10 reduced, the Acropolis €30 and €15, so two people doing the main pair are already past €100 before hotels. One help: state sites are free on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September, 28 October, and the first and third Sunday of each month from 1 November to 31 March.

The alternative

Koukaki, on the other side of the rock, is eight to twelve minutes from the same gate, residential, quieter and cheaper to eat in. It is the answer for most first trips, and where to stay makes the comparison in full. The neighbourhood earned its shape early.

It is named after Georgios Koukakis, whose iron bed factory opened there at the turn of the twentieth century and pulled a working-class neighbourhood in around it. What you trade is the postcard doorstep. What you gain is tavernas priced for people who live there, a flat walk to the museum side of the Acropolis, and hotel rates that leave money for the €20 ticket to the Acropolis Museum at the foot of the hill.