Art & Culture in Athens Beyond the Acropolis
Two museums, a painter's studio, a gallery, a market hall, a jazz club and a cinema on a Roman reservoir.
7 addresses · Updated October 2026
Athens is more than its ancient hill. Modern Greek painting, contemporary art in former industrial buildings, live jazz and summer cinema — the city's culture of the last two centuries, in seven addresses.
01 · Museum · Pangrati
National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum
Greece's national art museum, doubled in size in 2021. El Greco's Concert of Angels, Gyzis, Lytras, Parthenis and the Generation of the '30s. Open until ten on Wednesdays.
Vasileos Konstantinou 50, Pangrati, 116 34 Athens
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02 · Kolonaki
Benaki Museum - Ghika Gallery
The Kolonaki home and studio of Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, in a 1932 apartment block. The sixth-floor studio is preserved as he left it.
Kriezotou 3, Kolonaki, 106 71 Athens
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03 · Museum · Kerameikos
Benaki Museum Pireos
The Benaki's contemporary wing, in a 1950s car dealership on Pireos reworked by Kokkinou & Kourkoulas. Open late on Fridays and Saturdays.
Pireos 138 & Andronikou, Athens 118 54
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04 · Exarchia
Ninetto Gallery
A contemporary gallery on Leoforos Alexandras: four shows a year, international and Athenian artists side by side. Wednesday to Saturday afternoons.
Leoforos Alexandras 2, 10682 Athens
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05 · Landmark · Kypseli
Kypseli Municipal Market
A 1937 modernist market hall on Fokionos Negri, reopened in 2018 with cooperatives, a café and a year-round programme of exhibitions and concerts. Free to enter.
Fokionos Negri 42, Kypseli, Athina 113 61, Greece
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06 · Jazz Bar · Pangrati
Half Note Jazz Club
Live jazz in Mets since 1978, Greek and international, from bebop to contemporary. The city's most enduring room for improvised music.
Trivonianou 17, 116 36 Mets, Athens
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07 · Landmark · Kolonaki
Cine Dexameni
A summer open-air cinema in Kolonaki whose screen sits on the stone roof of Hadrian's Reservoir, a Roman cistern from 125–140 CE.
Plateia Dexamenis 7, Kolonaki, Athens 106 73
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