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Roots Earth in Athens: audio stories about 52 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 52 places in Athens, Greece, in Europe. The Athens stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Athens, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 52 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: athens.md

The 52 places in Athens with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. Acropolis of Athens
  2. Parthenon
  3. Acropolis Museum
  4. Ancient Agora of Athens
  5. Temple of Olympian Zeus
  6. Syntagma Square
  7. Old Royal Palace (Hellenic Parliament)
  8. Plaka
  9. Panathenaic Stadium
  10. National Archaeological Museum
  11. Erechtheion
  12. Odeon of Herodes Atticus
  13. Theatre of Dionysus
  14. Temple of Hephaestus
  15. Monastiraki Square
  16. Roman Agora of Athens
  17. Tower of the Winds
  18. Hadrian's Library
  19. Arch of Hadrian
  20. Mount Lycabettus
  21. Kerameikos
  22. National Garden
  23. Zappeion
  24. Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens
  25. Benaki Museum
  26. Museum of Cycladic Art
  27. Byzantine and Christian Museum
  28. Academy of Athens
  29. Numismatic Museum (Iliou Melathron)
  30. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
  31. Church of Panagia Kapnikarea
  32. Areopagus
  33. Pnyx
  34. Philopappos Monument
  35. Daphni Monastery
  36. Varvakios Agora (Athens Central Market)
  37. Exarcheia
  38. Psyri
  39. Anafiotika
  40. Koukaki
  41. Pangrati
  42. Kypseli
  43. Petralona
  44. Thiseio
  45. Metaxourgeio
  46. Kolonaki
  47. First Cemetery of Athens
  48. Technopolis (Gazi)
  49. Pedion tou Areos
  50. Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center
  51. Kaisariani Monastery
  52. Mets

Is there an audio guide for Acropolis of Athens?

Yes. Acropolis of Athens has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 52 Athens places in the app, at 37.97167, 23.72611. Every one of the other 51 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Athens

Open Roots Earth and choose Athens. The city has its own map of places with all 52 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 52 places in Athens, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 52 places in Athens, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. Acropolis of Athens

Coordinates
37.97167, 23.72611
In one line
A limestone citadel rising above Athens, crowned by the Parthenon and other marble temples rebuilt under Pericles after 447 BCE. Sacred to the goddess Athena and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, it remains the defining symbol of the ancient Greek world.

2. Parthenon

Coordinates
37.9715, 23.7266
In one line
The marble temple of Athena that crowns the Acropolis, built between 447 and 432 BCE by the architects Iktinos and Callicrates with sculpture overseen by Phidias. Famed for its Doric proportions and optical refinements, it endures as the supreme icon of classical Greek architecture.

3. Acropolis Museum

Coordinates
37.96911, 23.7283
In one line
A glass and concrete museum opened in 2009 at the foot of the Acropolis, designed by Bernard Tschumi with Michael Photiadis. It displays more than four thousand artifacts, including the original Caryatids, above an excavated ancient neighbourhood visible through glass floors.

4. Ancient Agora of Athens

Coordinates
37.975, 23.7225
In one line
The civic and commercial heart of ancient Athens below the Acropolis, a marketplace and meeting ground from the 6th century BCE. Here democracy took shape and Socrates taught, and the site still holds the well-preserved Temple of Hephaestus and the reconstructed Stoa of Attalos.

5. Temple of Olympian Zeus

Coordinates
37.96937, 23.73308
In one line
A colossal temple to Zeus begun in the 6th century BCE and finished by the emperor Hadrian around 131 AD. Once among the largest temples of the ancient world with 104 Corinthian columns, it survives today as fifteen towering marble pillars near the Acropolis.

6. Syntagma Square

Coordinates
37.97556, 23.73472
In one line
The civic heart of modern Athens, laid out before the royal palace in the 1830s and named Constitution Square after the 1843 uprising that won Greece its first constitution. It hosts the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the ceremonial changing of the Evzones guard.

7. Old Royal Palace (Hellenic Parliament)

Coordinates
37.97528, 23.73694
In one line
A neoclassical palace built between 1836 and 1843 for King Otto by the architect Friedrich von Gärtner, funded by Ludwig the First of Bavaria. Home to Greek royalty until a 1909 fire, it has served as the seat of the Hellenic Parliament since the 1930s.

8. Plaka

Coordinates
37.97222, 23.73056
In one line
The oldest neighbourhood of Athens, spread across the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis. Its labyrinth of stepped lanes, neoclassical houses, Byzantine churches and scattered ancient ruins has earned it the name Neighbourhood of the Gods.

9. Panathenaic Stadium

Coordinates
37.96833, 23.74111
In one line
The only stadium in the world built entirely of marble, rebuilt in Pentelic marble by Herodes Atticus around 144 CE and restored for the first modern Olympic Games of 1896. Its horseshoe of white seats still hosts the Olympic flame handover.

10. National Archaeological Museum

Coordinates
37.98917, 23.73222
In one line
Greece's largest archaeological collection, housed in a grand neoclassical building completed in 1889. Its galleries hold the gold Mask of Agamemnon, the Antikythera Mechanism and the Artemision Bronze, tracing Greek civilisation from prehistory to late antiquity.

11. Erechtheion

Coordinates
37.9721, 23.7265
In one line
An elegant Ionic temple on the Acropolis, built between around 421 and 406 BCE on uneven sacred ground. Its asymmetrical plan served several cults at once, and its Porch of the Caryatids, supported by six sculpted maidens, is among the most famous sights in Athens.

12. Odeon of Herodes Atticus

Coordinates
37.97076, 23.72444
In one line
A Roman theatre on the southern slope of the Acropolis, built in 161 CE by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. Once roofed in cedar and seating around 5,000, its restored marble tiers now host the summer Athens Festival beneath the ancient rock.

13. Theatre of Dionysus

Coordinates
37.97034, 23.72778
In one line
The birthplace of Greek drama, set on the southern slope of the Acropolis and dedicated to Dionysus. Tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides premiered here, in a stone theatre rebuilt around 330 BCE that once seated up to 17,000 spectators.

14. Temple of Hephaestus

Coordinates
37.97562, 23.72139
In one line
The best-preserved ancient Greek temple, built around 449 to 415 BCE on a hill above the Ancient Agora. A Doric temple to Hephaestus and Athena, it kept its columns and roof intact by serving for centuries as a Christian church.

15. Monastiraki Square

Coordinates
37.97639, 23.72361
In one line
A lively square named for the small church of the Pantanassa at its centre, ringed by an Ottoman mosque, ancient ruins and a famous flea market. It marks one of the oldest crossroads in Athens, with the Acropolis rising just beyond the rooftops.

16. Roman Agora of Athens

Coordinates
37.9742, 23.7265
In one line
A colonnaded marketplace built between 19 and 11 BCE with funds promised by Julius Caesar and provided by Augustus. It took over the commercial role of the older Greek Agora and is entered through the marble Gate of Athena Archegetis.

17. Tower of the Winds

Coordinates
37.97426, 23.72707
In one line
An octagonal marble tower built by Andronicus of Cyrrhus around the first century BCE, combining sundials, a water clock and a weathervane. Reliefs of eight personified winds wrap its upper frieze, making it the ancient world's surviving meteorological station and timepiece.

18. Hadrian's Library

Coordinates
37.97556, 23.72611
In one line
A vast cultural complex built by the emperor Hadrian around 132 CE, the largest library of ancient Athens. Beyond its columned facade lay a courtyard with a pool, reading rooms, lecture halls and shelves for papyrus scrolls. Later Byzantine churches rose within its walls.

19. Arch of Hadrian

Coordinates
37.97018, 23.73203
In one line
A marble gateway about 18 metres high, raised around 131 CE in honour of the emperor Hadrian. Two inscriptions mark it as a symbolic boundary, naming the old city of Theseus on one side and the new city of Hadrian on the other.

20. Mount Lycabettus

Coordinates
37.97778, 23.74167
In one line
The highest point in central Athens, a limestone hill rising 277 metres above the city. A funicular and footpaths climb to a whitewashed chapel of Saint George at the summit, where a sweeping panorama takes in the whole basin and the distant sea.

21. Kerameikos

Coordinates
37.97833, 23.71889
In one line
The ancient potters' quarter and principal cemetery of Athens, set along the Eridanos river. Crossed by the Sacred Gate and the Dipylon, it held the city's grandest tombs and the public graves where Pericles delivered his funeral oration in 431 BCE.

22. National Garden

Coordinates
37.97417, 23.73833
In one line
A shaded 15-hectare park behind the Greek Parliament, created in the late 1830s as Queen Amalia's royal garden.

23. Zappeion

Coordinates
37.97139, 23.73639
In one line
A neoclassical exhibition hall designed by Theophil Hansen and funded by the Zappas cousins, opened in 1888. Built to serve the revival of the Olympic Games, it remains a leading Athenian conference and exhibition venue.

24. Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens

Coordinates
37.97525, 23.73016
In one line
The grand cathedral of Athens, built between 1842 and 1862 using marble from dozens of demolished churches. Seat of the Archbishop of Athens, it hosts major state ceremonies and holds the relics of two revered saints.

25. Benaki Museum

Coordinates
37.97594, 23.74041
In one line
Founded in 1930 by collector Antonis Benakis in his family mansion, this museum traces Greek culture from prehistory to modern times. Its vast holdings make it one of the most important private collections gifted to the Greek state.

26. Museum of Cycladic Art

Coordinates
37.9757, 23.74227
In one line
Founded in 1986 by Nikolaos and Dolly Goulandris, this Kolonaki museum holds one of the finest private collections of Cycladic art. Its slender marble figurines from the third millennium before the common era astonish with their pure, abstract forms.

27. Byzantine and Christian Museum

Coordinates
37.97472, 23.74444
In one line
Founded in 1914 and set in the Villa Ilissia, once home to the Duchess of Plaisance, this museum holds more than 25,000 works of Byzantine and Christian art, from icons and frescoes to mosaics, manuscripts and sculpture.

28. Academy of Athens

Coordinates
37.98, 23.73417
In one line
A gleaming neoclassical landmark built between 1859 and 1885 to designs by Theophil Hansen. Crowned by columns bearing Athena and Apollo and flanked by statues of Socrates and Plato, it is Greece's national academy and part of the Athenian Trilogy.

29. Numismatic Museum (Iliou Melathron)

Coordinates
37.9778, 23.7354
In one line
Once the lavish Athens mansion of archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, this Renaissance Revival palace now houses Greece's Numismatic Museum, with more than 600,000 coins, medals and gems spanning over three thousand years of currency and exchange.

30. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Coordinates
37.96917, 23.78083
In one line
Founded in 1837 as the first university of the modern Greek state, its neoclassical main building stands at the centre of the Athens Trilogy on Panepistimiou Street, designed by Christian Hansen and richly painted by Carl Rahl.

31. Church of Panagia Kapnikarea

Coordinates
37.9763, 23.7286
In one line
A small eleventh-century Byzantine church marooned in the middle of busy Ermou Street, its domed cross-in-square form among the oldest in Athens. Slated for demolition in the nineteenth century, it was spared and now anchors the city's main shopping thoroughfare.

32. Areopagus

Coordinates
37.97222, 23.72361
In one line
A bare marble rock northwest of the Acropolis that served as ancient Athens's supreme council and homicide court. In myth it judged the gods themselves, and tradition holds that the Apostle Paul preached here to the Athenians.

33. Pnyx

Coordinates
37.97167, 23.71944
In one line
A rocky hillside west of the Acropolis where the citizen assembly of ancient Athens gathered to debate and vote. Widely regarded as the birthplace of democracy, it still bears the rock-cut speaker's platform from which Pericles and Demosthenes addressed thousands.

34. Philopappos Monument

Coordinates
37.96743, 23.72118
In one line
A marble mausoleum crowning the Hill of the Muses opposite the Acropolis, raised between 114 and 116 of the common era for Philopappos, a prince of Commagene and Roman consul. Its curved facade and chariot frieze still command sweeping city views.

35. Daphni Monastery

Coordinates
38.01296, 23.63588
In one line
An eleventh-century Byzantine monastery on the Sacred Way northwest of Athens, listed by UNESCO for its golden mosaics. Its dome holds a celebrated Christ Pantocrator, ranking the church among the finest surviving works of middle Byzantine art.

36. Varvakios Agora (Athens Central Market)

Coordinates
37.9802, 23.7271
In one line
Athens's oldest municipal market, running down the middle of Athinas Street since the late 19th century. Its meat and fish halls, ringed by spice, cheese and produce stalls, remain the loud, working heart of the city's food trade.

37. Exarcheia

Coordinates
37.98611, 23.73472
In one line
A central Athens neighborhood developed in the 1870s and named after a 19th-century shopkeeper. Long the city's intellectual and radical heart, it is known for bookshops, bars, dense political graffiti, the Polytechnic, and a fierce anarchist and student tradition.

38. Psyri

Coordinates
37.97778, 23.725
In one line
One of the oldest quarters of Athens, near Monastiraki. Once home to craftsmen and the rough koutsavakides street culture, it spent decades with an ill name before reinventing itself in the 1990s as a fashionable district of tavernas, bars and live music.

39. Anafiotika

Coordinates
37.97222, 23.72778
In one line
A tiny cluster of whitewashed Cycladic houses on the northeast slope of the Acropolis, built in the 19th century by island workers from Anafi. Around 45 cottages remain, with no street names, forming a quiet island village hidden inside Plaka.

40. Koukaki

Coordinates
37.9625, 23.72083
In one line
A residential neighborhood just southwest of the Acropolis, between Filopappou Hill and Neos Kosmos. Long a quiet middle-class district, it has become one of central Athens's most fashionable quarters, full of cafes, pedestrian streets and small hotels.

41. Pangrati

Coordinates
37.96806, 23.74389
In one line
A large residential neighborhood east of the National Gardens, named after an ancient sanctuary of Hercules. Home to the Panathenaic Stadium and the First Cemetery, long beloved by writers and musicians, it has lately become one of the city's most fashionable districts.

42. Kypseli

Coordinates
38.0025, 23.74139
In one line
A densely built central Athens neighborhood whose name means beehive. Once a fashionable district of Art Deco and modernist apartments around Fokionos Negri, it declined, became deeply multicultural, and is now reviving around its restored 1937 municipal market.

43. Petralona

Coordinates
37.96722, 23.70972
In one line
A working-class quarter on the western slopes below Filopappou Hill, named for the stone threshing floors once worked here. Split into Ano and Kato Petralona, it grew with refugees after 1922 and now mixes old tavernas with a younger, creative crowd.

44. Thiseio

Coordinates
37.97556, 23.71667
In one line
A leafy neighbourhood northwest of the Acropolis, named for the Temple of Hephaestus once mistaken for a shrine to Theseus. Ringed by ancient sites and crossed by café-lined pedestrian streets, it is famous for sunset views of the Acropolis.

45. Metaxourgeio

Coordinates
37.98611, 23.72139
In one line
A central neighbourhood named for the silk mill built here in the 1830s, whose surviving halls now house the Municipal Gallery of Athens. Long a working-class and immigrant quarter, it is known today for street art, theatres and a gritty creative revival around Avdi Square.

46. Kolonaki

Coordinates
37.97778, 23.74167
In one line
Athens' most fashionable district, climbing the southern slopes of Lycabettus and named for a small ancient column in its central square. Long the home of the city's elite, it gathers embassies, major museums, designer boutiques and a famous cafe culture.

47. First Cemetery of Athens

Coordinates
37.96306, 23.73778
In one line
Opened in 1837, the official cemetery of Athens is an open-air museum of nineteenth-century funerary sculpture. Set among pines and cypresses behind the Panathenaic Stadium, it holds the graves of poets, prime ministers and Heinrich Schliemann, and the celebrated marble Sleeping Maiden.

48. Technopolis (Gazi)

Coordinates
37.97814, 23.71411
In one line
A cultural complex inside the old Athens gasworks, founded in 1857 and shut in 1984. Reopened in 1999 and dedicated to composer Manos Hatzidakis, its brick furnaces and gasometers now host concerts, festivals and an industrial gas museum, anchoring the nightlife of Gazi.

49. Pedion tou Areos

Coordinates
37.99284, 23.73651
In one line
One of the largest parks in central Athens, laid out in 1934 to honour the heroes of the 1821 War of Independence. Spread over nearly 28 hectares, its tree-lined avenues are dotted with marble busts of revolutionary fighters and an equestrian statue of King Constantine the First.

50. Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center

Coordinates
37.93972, 23.69167
In one line
A Renzo Piano cultural complex completed in 2016 on a former racecourse near the sea at Kallithea. It houses the National Library of Greece, the Greek National Opera and a vast park, gifted to the Greek state by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

51. Kaisariani Monastery

Coordinates
37.96083, 23.79833
In one line
An 11th-century Byzantine monastery on the wooded slopes of Mount Hymettus east of Athens. Its cross-in-square church holds frescoes from 1682, and a sacred spring on the site was linked in antiquity to the goddess Aphrodite.

52. Mets

Coordinates
37.96639, 23.73667
In one line
A quiet, leafy neighborhood of central Athens between the Panathenaic Stadium, Ardettos hill and the First Cemetery. It takes its name from a 19th-century Bavarian beer brewery and is known for its preserved neoclassical houses and steep lanes.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

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