Fodor's Expert Review Technopolis

Gazi, the neighborhood surrounding this former 19th-century-gasworks-turned-arts-complex, takes its name from the toxic gas fumes that used to spew from the factory's smokestacks. Today Gazi district is synonymous with an intellectual gallery scene and buzzy nightlife, with a special LGBT-friendly zone to boot. The smokestacks are now glowing crimson referential landmarks anchoring a burgeoning stretch that runs from the central neighborhood of Kerameikos to the once-decrepit neighborhood of Rouf. Since the city of Athens bought the disused gasworks in the late 1990s, it was converted, retaining the original brick architecture, into Technopolis, where large art exhibitions and events centered on gastronomy, social history, lifestyle, and culture (like the annual European Jazz Festival) regularly take place, and where the Industrial Gas Museum is housed.