Athens Walking Tour Map 2 (click to see larger)

Walk via Syntagma or Monastiraki Squares to Keramicos, Athens' Ancient Cemetery, straight down Hermes or Ermou St., the Pompein and Dyplion gates. You could always take the metro to the Thession or band new in  June 2007 Keramikos stop.

Athens Walking Tour map #2: Walk from Syntagma or Monastiraki Squares to "Keramicos", the Pompein and Dyplion Gates via Hermes or Ermou St. These were the main gates of ancient Athens and nearby, where many important people like Pericles were buried. Pericles also delivered his famous funeral oration for Peloponnesian War fallen heros from a platform here.

Get a Historical perspective Athens ancient sights  

But before we get to the walking tour maps and in order for you to to get a chronological perspective, you see here, a couple of maps and a drawing of ancient and Byzantine Athens! Just click on them to see them larger.

Glancing at them you'll understand more completely, what it is you are walking in, over and through in modern Athens.

 

 

To start with above top is a drawing of ancient Athens - click it to get an idea of how extensive ancient Athens actually was. It was quite extensive even if this is only an artists depiction.

Above left is yet another perspective of the ancient polis and note that for a period, during its peak, Athens had long walls which connected to the fleet moorings in Piraeus and also to Phaliron beach where its war galleys called bi-reams and tri-reams were beached.

In Piraeus these moorings were more substantial and their rock foundations can still be seen today.

And third is a drawing of Byzantine Athens which is a couple thousand years later and provides a much needed sense of continuity with the complexity that is historical Athens as you see it today.

Besides the most important remaining Byzantine Christian houses of worship remaining in Athens it also pictures the various defensive walls that were laid down over the years as the city expanded and contracted in size.

Kindly notice the Themostoklean Walls and The Roman Emperor Hadrians' walls. Hadrian was a lover of Greece or what is known as historically as a Philehellene and did a lot of monument building in Athens: Hadrian's Library and Hadiran Arch! You'll read about most those below and on specific pages as well.