Where to stay in Athens: a neighbourhood by neighbourhood answer

Athens is a big city with a small centre. Almost everything a visitor wants sits inside a walkable ring around the Acropolis, so the choice of neighbourhood is less about distance than about what you want your evenings to be like.

Plaka and Monastiraki

The old town under the Acropolis, all neoclassical houses and bougainvillea, and the most charming place to stay in the city. It is also the busiest and the most touristic, and the tavernas on the main lanes are not where Athenians eat. Best for a first visit and a short stay, when being able to walk out of the door into the ancient city is worth more than authenticity.

Koukaki

Immediately south of the Acropolis and the one we recommend most often. Residential, calm, full of proper neighbourhood cafés and restaurants, ten minutes on foot to the Acropolis Museum and twelve to the rock itself. Better value than Plaka for the same walk.

Syntagma and Kolonaki

Syntagma is the transport hub, which makes it the right base if you are moving on to the airport or the port at an awkward hour. Kolonaki, up the hill behind it, is the smart district: designer shops, good restaurants and the funicular up Lycabettus. Quieter at night than you might expect, because it is where people live rather than go out.

Omonia, which is changing fast

Omonia had a poor reputation for years and a lot of travel writing has not caught up. The square itself was rebuilt, and there is now a genuine cluster of five star and design hotels on and around it, several of them among the better rooms in the city. It is also the best connected point in Athens, with two metro lines meeting underneath it and Syntagma one stop away. If a smart hotel here comes in below what the same standard costs in Plaka, that is worth taking seriously rather than dismissing.

As anywhere in a big city centre, the character shifts street by street, so look at exactly where the hotel sits rather than at the district name. That is a question worth asking us before you book.

One area to think twice about

The far end of Piraeus. It is nowhere near anything you came to see, and unless your ferry genuinely leaves at six in the morning you are giving up the city for a shorter taxi ride.

We book hotels and villas across Athens and the islands, chosen by people who have stayed in them, and we will tell you which side of the building to ask for.