Athens

Athens is the capital of Greece, the center of the district of Attica, named after the Greek goddess Athena. Athens is the economic, financial and cultural center of the country, spread out on the southern coast of the Aegean Sea in a rather mountainous area. There are 12 hills within the city, the most impressive of which are the Acropolis and the Lycabetus, which offer magnificent views of the Saronic Gulf.

Athens is a city with a rich history and is the cradle of all Western culture. The first settlement appeared on its territory as early as 3,000 years B.C. The golden age of Athens fell on the VI-IV centuries B.C., when the city was inhabited and worked by Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Phidias and a number of other prominent figures of world culture. The city retained its importance until the rise of Constantinople and Byzantium, when the region finally became a Christian city and Athens became an out-of-town city, passed under the control of the Muslim Turks after the fall of Byzantium.

In the nineteenth century Athens became the capital of independent Greece. With the decision to move the capital to Athens, a group of architects and urban planners were assembled to build a new city next to the classical ruins, since Athens was nothing special at the time.

In the twentieth century Athens developed quite rapidly. During World War II the city did not suffer any significant damage, but during the following years it underwent substantial redevelopment. In the 1960s and 1970s, many private neoclassical buildings in the city were demolished to make way for office centers. In the 1990s, the city again underwent extensive changes in terms of infrastructure and transportation improvements, surviving neoclassical buildings were also rebuilt, industrial areas and coastal areas of the city were reconstructed. Unfortunately, the boom of the 90s and the first half of the 00s ended with the arrival of the severe economic crisis, which brought the Greek economy to the brink of disaster. The crisis primarily affected the capital, where a huge number of people are unemployed and where strikes continue unabated as of 2012. However, this, on the whole, does not prevent Athens from remaining a city where many tourists flock for the sake of historical monuments.

Climate and weather in Athens
Spring and late fall are the best times to visit Athens. Summers can be very hot and dry. Winter is sometimes rainy, with few snow days. That said, winter can be the perfect time to visit the city, when it’s albeit fresh but not crowded.

There is often smog over the city, which is due to the geography of the city – because Athens is surrounded by mountains, exhaust and pollution from cars often lingers over the city.