Athens Guide: Omonia Square and Beyond

Platia Kotzia

Beyond the Athens Market on Athinas street is the Platia of the Dimarcheo, or City Hall Square, the government center for Athens. The square, which is known as Platia Ethniki Andistassis (National Resistance) or more popularly Kotzia Square until recently was a total disaster. When they were building a parking lot they discovered antiquities. The archaeologists rushed in, excavated it and then left it for years as a giant fenced in pit for people to throw their garbage in. But now it has been covered up and is one of the most impressive squares in Greece, surrounded by some beautiful neo-classic buildings from the turn of the century.In the early days of travel to Greece this platia was the tourism center with all the tourist shops which gradually moved to Monastiraki and then to Plaka.Though the marble Panathenaic Stadium usually gets the credit for being the site of the first modern Olympic games in 1896, the first revival of the ancient Olympic games actually took place in Platia Kotzia in 1859.

In the nineties the square unfortunately became a hangout for drug dealers and junkies at night and the area got a bad reputation. But it was always perfectly safe by day since it is in the primary shopping area of Athens and now that they have moved all the undesirables to the area by the train station Platia Kotzia can be visited at any time.  Be sure to check out the sculptures on display here and the pet store with the exotic parrots and toucans. There are a couple great cafes on the square, especially the one next to the pet store where you can buy a cheese pie and spend hours being entertained by the pigeons who fight each other for it. Across the square from the pet store are a couple classic cafeneons just on the other side of the ruins. The impressive National Bank of Greece on the bottom (or maybe its the top) of the square is on Eolou Street one of Athens popular pedestrian shopping streets which leads you right back past the Central Market and all the way to Monastiraki and the Plaka.

If you go another block on Athinas street or Eolou you come to Lamvropoulos, a  6 floor department store and a good place to hang out if you want to shop in the summer and not leave air-conditioning. There is a nice little cafe-restaurant on the top floor.

Omonia Square

If you continue down Athinas street from the Central Market , you will come to Omonia square, Athens oldest. It's worth a trip, just as you can't go to New York without taking a peak at 42nd street. If you are from New York it will remind you more of 14th street. Omonia is pretty tame these days but for awhile it was a place to avoid. It's surrounded with fast-food stores and the enormous famous old cafeneon has been turned into a Cafe-Neon, sort of a cafeteria where you can get just about anything. The food is not bad and some old guys still hang out there. The pedestrian streets on the other side of the square are interesting in a third-world kind of way. There are several major hotels that have been bought up by big hotel companies and renovated and the whole area is undergoing renewal. Beneath the square is the metro. There is a health food store on Panepistimiou-Venizelos Street just off the square. Directly opposite Agios Konstantinou Street passes the National Theater and ends at Kariaskakis and Metaxourgiou Square. If you continue down Theodorou Diligiani Street you will come to the Larissa Station where you get the trains to northern Greece or the buses to Albania. Its not the best area though there are a number of nice hotels that do much of their business with foreign travel agents and automated-booking sites from people who can't resist the low prices. So lets head back to Omonia.

Omonia square was at one time quite beautiful and a centerpiece for the city. If you go downstairs into the metro station you can see old photos of it in the glory days. When Athens embraced the automobile, Omonia was one of the major casualties and the square became less people friendly and eventually it was not even automobile friendly as cars converged on it from all directions. They have been trying to recapture the bygone days and have rebuilt the square several times in the last few years either to 'get it right' or to make sure a construction company owner or city official does not go to bed hungry. The current version of Omonia square is a mystery. First of all nobody knows if it is finished or not. (That gives you an idea of the architecture). They want to ask the people who built it but apparently they can't be found. I personally would have loved to see a few more trees so it would slightly resemble the old photos but there are none. In fact it looks like a lot of concrete was used to get that Eastern Europe during the Cold War look. My sources tell me nobody is happy about it so we can look foreword to yet another look for Omonia in the near future. See also The New Omonia Square: What tha!!!????

On the opposite side of Omonia the traffic pattern gets very interesting because the only way for the large avenues that lead to Patission and Syntagma to connect with the new smaller and more civilized Athinas Street is by following the signs which lead cars through a series of small, crowded back streets. In other words cars are discouraged from going to Athinas Street, which is a good thing.

Little London

A block from Omonia in a feat of engineering skill that will be studied in city planning departments in Universities all over the world the traffic planners have actually managed to have one street where traffic is reversed. On the small street that connects Eolou and 28th of October street between Stadiou and Panapistimiou the lanes are reversed so it is as if you are driving in England. This is not mentioned so you can visit it as a tourist attraction but so that you won't get run over when crossing the street because you were looking the wrong way (the right way actually). There's a Starbucks here too.

The Polytechnic and Nov 17th

If you come from Omonia take a right on Panipistimiou and your first left you can walk a few blocks up 28th of October street and be at the Polytechnic University where the demonstrations of Nov 17th 1973 eventually brought about the fall of the Dictatorship. The students barricaded themselves inside the University and broadcasted on a clandestine radio for their fellow Greeks to rise up and overthrow the government. They were joined by many and for 2 weeks the country looked like it might break into revolution but finally the army was called in. On the night of Nov 17th a tank burst through the gate and many students were killed. The gate has remained locked since then. Though not a popular tourist destination it is a symbol of resistance. Every year on the anniversary a march begins here and goes to the US Embassy which supported the dictatorship, led by the mothers of the students who died, dressed in black. You can click on the photo to enlarge it so you can actually see the students confronting the tank, many of whom died a few moments after this picture was taken. See my section on Rebellion in my History of Greece.

Exarchia

If you walk into the neighborhood behind the Polytechnic you will come to Exarchia which is the student area of central Athens. Lots of clubs, bars, restaurants and cafes, all of them pretty affordable. There is a small square, called Exarchia square, with lots of cafes and tables, where they occasionally have live bands and sometimes the anarchists come to battle the police. No it is not particularly dangerous but if you should come at the wrong time you may get a whiff of tear gas or burning tires. Needless to say few older tourists venture in here but it is certainly a young person hang-out and a pretty good one at that. There are lots of computer shops and some cool vintage record stores here. One of the oldest and most famous apartment buildings is in Exarchia Square.

National Museum of Archaeology

If you are not adventurous enough to visit Exarchia you can continue walking up 28th of October street and you will come to the National Archaeology Museum. As you have noticed I have broken a couple golden rules of travel writing. First I have used a picture of my daughter and my niece which would classify this as a personal photo and rendered this page unprofessional. You will also notice the demonstration in the background (museum workers protesting against high taxes in case you are interested) something you don't normally see in a travel guide. But the picture serves the purpose of illustrating that even if you come upon a demonstration you are not the target and in no danger no matter what your nationality. There are marches almost daily, a sign of a healthy and free society since it is in the nature of all governments to be somewhat self-serving or corrupt and the nature of all sane people within that society to voice their discontent. As for the museum itself, a visit here is a must and you need at least two or three hours to see it as it contains just about every important ancient piece that you have seen in your ancient history and art textbooks and some pieces that you may have never seen that I guarantee will impress you. If you don't hire a guide at least get the book so you will know what you are looking at. Probably the most popular piece in the museum is the 2000 year old computer that was found in the sea off the island of Kythera and is known by anyone who has read the works of Erich Von Daniken.

Beyond the Museum

Beyond the museum is Areos Park and Kypseli which is one of my favorite areas. Kypseli, despite being one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in the world has Fokoinios Negri, a long avenue that was turned into a park and bordered by cafes and restaurants including a few of my favorites. Areos Park is the largest in Athens and also contains the law courts, a place you don't want to end up in. On the corner of Alexandras Avenue and 28th of October-Patission Street is the tiny Egypt Square where you can catch the buses to Rafina, Lavrion, Marathon, Oropos and Sounion.  

From Omonia to Syntagma Square

Panepistimiou Street is one of two main avenues that connect Omonia Square to Syntagma Square. It means University Street but it is also called Eleftherios Venizelos Street after the man who was probably the Abraham Lincoln of Greece. You can read more about him at History of Greece: Venizelos. Like Lincoln, the way you feel about hom depends on where you stand socially and politically. Some love him and some hate him. Still. His house is still on Venizelos Street and the only reason he is not buried in Athens rather than his home island of Crete is because the government was afraid there would be riots when they brought is body back from Paris in 1932, where he was living in exile.

Panepistimiou- E Venizelos Street was at one time a dry riverbed that they finally covered up in 1858. The river bed is still underneath in a tunnel and in fact the metro tunnel is underneath that. In 1867 the State Treasury which was located was robbed by a team of thieves who entered  the tunnel near Omonia Square. To find the exact spot to break into the building they found a merchant who was having trouble getting his money from the treasury, and paid him in cash for the check. Then one of the robbers went into the building and when told he could not cash the check he threw a tantrum and banged his cane on the floor to let the others know the location. They waited til the building was closed and broke through the wooden floor. But they were caught the next day.

If you walk back up Panepistimiou- E Venizelos Street from Omonia you will pass the University of Athens on your left. If you want to see what Ancient Athens looked like in it's golden age these buildings will give you a good idea. Just beyond is the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Denis. Across from the University in the concrete park-like area called The Koral is a Starbucks and a metro station. If you walk through the Koral and cross Stadiou Street you are in Klathmanos Square which is now known for the electronic shops and the Byzantine church of Agii Theodori. In the mid 1800s the houses around the square were rented to civil servants. When each political party replaced the previous, the civil servants were also replaced and sat in the cafes on the square lamenting their jobless future. The square became known as 'the Weeping Square" (Klathmanos). In the beautiful neo-classical building on the square, the first residence of Greece's first royal couple and known as 'the old palace', is the Museum of the City of Athens which presents the history of the city from the end of the middle ages to the present.

If you return to Panapistimiou Street and go right towards Syntagma further on is the Iliou Melathron, the Palace of Ilion and Home of Henrich Schlieman (photo) on your left. The Schlieman Mansion is considered to be the finest work of the architect Ernst Ziller, built between 1870 and 1881 ina  style that combines neo-classical and renaissance architecture.   and now houses the Numismatic Museum. For those who don't know, Schlieman was the German archaeologist-adventurer who discovered Troy and Mycenae and Numismatic means coins. The Numismatic museum is considered one of the best in the world with 600,000 coins housed in one of the most beautiful buildings of Athens decorated by some spectacular wall paintings of the Pompeian style as well as geometric style floor mosaics.  

Eleftherodakis Books, across the street, is certainly worth a visit if you are running low on reading material or you want to see a selection of books that are unique to Greece as well as books that will make you feel like you are in Barnes and Noble. There is a cafe on the top floor. Between Panapistimiou and Stadiou streets there are a couple stoas (like streets but covered so they are indoors) with different themes.  Between Amerikis street and Voukourestiou Streets is an immense building that takes up an entire city block. It is now a department store called Attica, one of if not the biggest department store in Greece. If you take a left on Voukourestiou Street and cross Panapistimiou-Venizelou you can go straight up to Kolonaki and Mount Lycabettos.

If you cut over from Panapistimiou-Venizelou to Stadiou street you will come to the Virgin Music superstore and Kolokotronis Square with its statue of Greece's revolutionary hero on horseback outside the Old Parliament Building which is now the National Historical Museum. Designed by the French architect Boulanger and completed in 1875 the museum covers Greek history from the fall of Constnatimnople in 1453 to World War 2 and contains historical paintings, furniture, traditional costumes, and weapons that belonged to some of your favorite heroes of modern Greek history and definately worth a visit. In 1905 Prime Minister Delyianis was stabbed fatally in the stomach on the steps of this building by an assassin who was upset at the closing of the casinos of Athens.

If you continue up Panapistimiou or Stadiou street you will find yourself at Syntagma Square. To get back to Athinas Street just turn right down Karagiorgis Servias street until you can't go any further. The street will change names several times but as long as you don't change streets you will get there. Along the way on the corner of Voulis you will see a plaque on the wall in memorial to Athanasios Axarlian, a 22 year old student who was killed when a rocket fired by November 17th glanced off the limo of Finance Minister Ioannis Palaiokrassas in 1992. Axarlian had come to Athens to escape the war in Yugoslavia where he was a student. If you go left on Voulis Street you will come to the Plaka. If you go right on Voulis Street you will come to Ariston, my favorite tiropita shop.

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