# Roots Earth in Athens: audio stories about 52 places Canonical: https://rootsearth.com/cities/athens Published: 16 September 2026 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. ## 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. - No account - Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection - Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app). ## More from Roots Earth - [Europe in the Roots Earth catalogue](https://rootsearth.com/cities#europe): every city in Europe with its number of places and its languages. - [What Roots Earth is](https://rootsearth.com/app): the app in one page, how it works and what is in it. - [Questions travellers ask](https://rootsearth.com/faq): the cities, the languages, the account, listening without a connection. - [The 7 languages](https://rootsearth.com/languages): the seven languages with their codes and how many cities each one covers. - [Thessaloniki](https://rootsearth.com/cities/thessaloniki): 44 places in Greece with audio stories. - [Rhodes](https://rootsearth.com/cities/rhodes): 40 places in Greece with audio stories. - [Delphi](https://rootsearth.com/cities/delphi): 40 places in Greece with audio stories. - [Nafplio](https://rootsearth.com/cities/nafplio): 40 places in Greece with audio stories. 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