All About Athens: The City of Inspiration

Athens is inspiration.

The cradle of Western Civilization as well as of the modern Olympic Games, Athens inspired the foundation of drama, philosophy and democracy. All three terms, by the way, emanate from the Greek language. Some of history's most eternal names -- Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Pericles, Euripedes and St. Paul, to name a few -- walked here in the shadows of such timeless (if, judging from their present condition, not exactly eternal) structures as the Parthenon, the most influential building in Western architecture.

Among visitors, Athens mainly inspires awe. Athens in August is a sweltering, somewhat dilapidated city teeming with traffic and an infamous layer of smog ("nefos"), but it is also vibrant, affable and eccentric. Take a short tour with us around the metropolis (from the Greek "mother city") where myth and history are as intertwined as the Olympic rings themselves.

ACROPOLIS

Getty Images The Parthenon and other temples on the Acropolis stand out on any night in Athens.

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