8 Best Sights in Kolonaki, Athens

Greece's oldest private museum received a spectacular addition in 2004, with a hypermodern new branch that looks like it was airlifted in from New York City. The imposing Neoclassical mansion in the posh Kolonaki neighborhood was turned into a museum in 1926 by an illustrious Athenian family and was one of the first to place emphasis on Greece's later heritage at a time when many archaeologists were destroying Byzantine artifacts to access ancient objects. The permanent collection (more than 20,000 items are on display in 36 rooms, and that's only a sample of the holdings) moves chronologically from the ground floor upward, from prehistory to the formation of the modern Greek state. You might see anything from a 5,000-year-old hammered-gold bowl to an austere Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary to Lord Byron's pistols to the Nobel medals awarded to poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis. Some exhibits are just plain fun—the re-creation of a Kozani (Macedonian town) living room; a Karaghiozi shadow puppet piloting a toy plane—all contrasted against the marble and crystal-chandelier grandeur of the Benaki home. The mansion that serves as the main building of the museum was designed by Anastassios Metaxas, the architect who helped restore the Panathenaic Stadium. The Benaki's gift shop, a destination in itself, tempts with exquisitely reproduced ceramics and jewelry, some with exciting contemporary design twists. The second-floor café is on a generous veranda overlooking the National Garden. A couple of blocks away is the Benaki Ghika Gallery, at 3 Krietzou Street, dedicated to the painter Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika. The annex at 138 Pireos Street in the Gazi-Keremeikos neighborhood displays avant-garde temporary exhibitions, while behind Kerameikos Cemetery stands the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art.

Myth claims that Athens's highest hill came into existence when Athena removed a piece of Mt. Pendeli, intending to boost the height of her temple on the Acropolis. While she was en route, a crone brought her bad tidings, and the flustered goddess dropped the rock in the middle of the city. Dog walkers, lovers, and joggers make it their daily stomping grounds, while kids and tired visitors love the zap up the steeply inclined teleferique (funicular) to the summit (one ride every 30 minutes). once you reach the top, visit the whitewashed Agios Georgios chapel with a bell tower donated by Queen Olga and enjoy 360-degree views of the capital. The thickly forested hill strewn with wild herbs and flowers offers wonderful respite from the city's car-packed action and sounds, and, depending where you are, you can see Piraeus port and as far as Aegina island, or the Parthenon in all its glory. Built into a cave on the side of the hill is a small shrine to Agios Isidoros, known for housing a miraculous icon. Cars park up at the top at sunset for swoon-inducing magic-hour views of the city as lights twinkle on and the moon rises over "violet-crowned" Mt. Hymettus. Diners should also note that Lycabettus is home to Orizontes Lykavittou, an excellent fish restaurant (which by day houses Café Lycabettus).

This museum has an outstanding collection of 350 Cycladic artifacts dating from the Bronze Age, including many of the enigmatic marble figurines whose slender shapes fascinated such artists as Picasso, Modigliani, and Brancusi. The main building is an imposing glass-and-steel design dating from 1985 and built to convey "the sense of austerity and the diffusion of refracted light that predominate in the Cycladic landscape," as the museum puts it. Along with Cycladic masterpieces, a wide array from other eras is also on view, ranging from the Bronze Age through the 6th century AD. The third floor is devoted to Cypriot art, while the fourth floor showcases a fascinating exhibition on "scenes from daily life in antiquity." To handle the overflow, a new wing opened in 2005. A glass corridor connects the main building to the gorgeous, 19th-century, Neoclassical Stathatos Mansion, where temporary exhibitions are presented. Throughout the year, the museum organizes educational initiatives for children and collaborates with several institutions for this purpose. For a break, visit the skylighted café in an enclosed courtyard around a Cycladic-inspired fountain, or the art shop selling artifact replicas as well as books, home decor items, jewelry, and accessories by classic and contemporary Greek designers.

A key reference point for Athens's culture vultures, this private nonprofit foundation focuses on the visual arts and music, with a special interest in modernism. The driving force behind the imposing cultural center, housed in a neoclassical building beside the Greek Parliament, is Basil Theocharakis, a prominent businessman who is also an avid and talented painter, and his wife, Marina. Temporary exhibitions, classical concerts, and educational workshops are held here on a regular basis, while Cafe Merlin, the elegant first-floor café, offers a welcome respite from the city's hustle and bustle. On the mezzanine floor you'll also find a lovely café-bistro, and on the ground floor a charming gift shop.

One of the few museums in Europe focusing exclusively on Byzantine art displays an outstanding collection of icons, mosaics, tapestries, and sculptural fragments (the latter provides an excellent introduction to the architecture of the period). The permanent collection is divided into two main parts: the first is devoted to Byzantium (4th through 15th century AD) and contains 1,200 artifacts, while the second is entitled "From Byzantium to the Modern Era" and presents 1,500 artworks dating from the 15th to the 21st century.

Book lovers who ascend the grand staircase into the hallowed aura of the Reading Room may have difficulty tearing themselves away from this superb collection of material on Greek subjects, from first editions of Greek classics to the papers of Nobel laureate poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis. The library's collection includes Lord Byron's memorabilia (including a lock of his hair); Heinrich Schliemann's diaries, notebooks, and letters; impressionistic watercolors of Greece by Edward Lear; and the first edition printed in Greek of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. The Gennadius is not a lending library (first-time users, usually scholars, must apply for a library card), but the temporary exhibitions (curated by internationally renowned figures) are always worth a visit.

To see and be seen, Athenians gather not on Kolonaki Square—hub of the chic Kolonaki district—but at the cafés on its periphery and along the Tsakalof and Milioni pedestrian zones. Clothespin-thin models, slick talk-show hosts, middle-aged executives, elegant pensioners, university students, and expatriate teen queens can be spotted lounging at the square (officially known as Filikis Eterias).

In the sea of concrete that is Central Athens, this imposing group of white marble buildings, known as the Athenian Trilogy, gleams majestically under perfect azure skies like an illusion of classical antiquity. The three dramatic buildings belonging to the University of Athens were designed by the Hansen brothers in the period after independence in the 19th century and are built of Pendelic marble, with tall columns and decorative friezes. In the center is the University, after which Panepistimiou (panepistimio means university) Street is named, with its huge colorful mural. To the right is the Academy, flanked by two slim columns topped by statues of Athena and Apollo; paid for by the Austro-Greek Baron Sina, it is a copy of the Parliament in Vienna. Frescoes in the reception hall depict the myth of Prometheus. At the left end of the complex is a griffin-flanked staircase leading to the National Library, which has been housed in the building since 1903 and contains more than 2 million Greek and foreign-language volumes; the books are now being transferred to their new home, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.