Classical Athens

This modern hotel offers 12 spacious suites with unique views of the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora in Thissio, and the Athens Observatory

"How beautiful old Athens used to be!" muses Nikos Boukouras, as he discusses the secrets of the Ilissos River with Aris Lintzerakos, 40 years his junior. In Nikos' small apartment in the heart of downtown Petralona, where he now lives alone on a disability pension, the pair's discussions every Thursday range from Athens in the 1980s and 1990s, to model-making, to the Patra Carnival.

The most aristocratic hotel in Athens keeps the myth alive by hosting the greatest personalities of all time

President Katerina Sakellaropoulou looks at ancient helmet in the exhibition "Chaeronea, August 2, 338 BC: A Day that Changed the World," at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. The Battle of Chaeronea was fought in 338 BC, near the city of Chaeronea in Boeotia, between Macedonia under Philip II and an alliance of city-states led by Athens and Thebes.

Some 240 antiquities and historical items from 27 museums in Greece and abroad and four private collections comprise the new exhibition on the 338 BC Battle of Chaeronea, which opens at the Museum of Cycladic Art (MCA) in Athens on Thursday.

The country's top advisory body on the protection of antiquities has approved a plan to install new telescopic lightning protection masts on the Athens Acropolis to safeguard its monuments against lightning strikes.

Radical electronica pioneers Kraftwerk promise an audiovisual extravaganza at one of the world's most iconic ancient theaters, the Herod Atticus at the Acropolis. The Dusseldorf-based outfit, which helped popularize the innovative genre after breaking out in the 1970s, has continued to make inroads ever since.

If Athens' population is estimated at roughly 4 million today, back in ancient times, Attica as a whole was home to just 300,000 to 400,000 people, the majority of whom resided in the valley around the Acropolis and the Agora, the center of political, social and commercial activity.

Greece on March 24 welcomed the return of ancient artifacts from the Acropolis, furthering a campaign to press the British Museum to hand back a collection of sculptures taken from the ancient site in Athens more than 200 years ago.

Three fragments of the Athens Parthenon, hosted for centuries in the Vatican collections and museums, will be returned to Greece after the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, signed the donation protocol in Rome on March Tuesday.