Metaxourgeio

Once ignored as simply a transient neighborhood, Metaxourgeio has acquired its own character as an emerging artist hub. The Municipal Gallery of Athens set up shop here. The surrounding urban grid is an assorted collection of crumbling buildings and renovated houses that pays equal tribute to the glorious past and the hopeful future. But this is definitely a transitional neighborhood filled with recent immigrants (a small Chinatown of grocery and clothing shops is located between Kolonou and Kolokynthous streets), so always be mindful of your surroundings. You may wish to admire the Metaxourgeio metro station even if you don’t have to go anywhere in particular, if only to admire the wall mural "The myth of my neighborhood" by renowned Greek painter Yiannis Moralis. Just up the road from traffic-ladden Metaxourgeio Square, on Ayiou Konstantinou street, is the headquarters of the Greek National Theatre.