RE-ATHENSBeta
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The City

Places worth the detour.

Shops, markets, and the corners of Athens that don't fit a category — and are better for it.

Cine Dexameni open-air cinema in Kolonaki, Athens — one of Greece's oldest outdoor cinemas, set in a garden below Lycabettus Hill
Landmark

Cine Dexameni

Cine Dexameni operates each summer above Hadrian's Reservoir — a Roman cistern built between 125 and 140 CE at the western base of Lycabettus, supplied by a 19-kilometre aqueduct cut through solid rock from Mount Parnitha. One of Athens' oldest and best-loved open-air cinemas, the screen sits over the reservoir's stone roof while the original vaulted chamber remains sealed below. Dexameni Square, Kolonaki.

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Athens Central Market

The Varvakeios Agora has been the gut of Athens since 1886. Fish on one side, meat on the other, vegetables across the street, neoclassical iron-and-glass framing the whole thing. Wake up early, walk slow.

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Half Note Jazz Club in Athens — the city's foremost jazz venue, hosting international and local performers since 1999
Jazz Bar

Half Note Jazz Club

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Akti Vouliagmeni Beach on the Athens Riviera — a sheltered bay at the foot of limestone cliffs with calm turquoise water
Beach

Akti Vouliagmeni Beach

Akti Vouliagmeni opened in 1960 as the Greek National Tourism Organisation's flagship bathing complex, designed by four architects — Vassiliadis, Sakellariou, Vourekas and Hatzimichalis — on 650 metres of coast 25 kilometres south of Athens. Now managed by HPPC, it remains the most visited organised beach in Attica: Blue Flag water, seven tennis courts, a café-bar, first-aid station, lifeguards, and full accessibility including a sea-access ramp for disabled visitors.

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Cine Oasis

Cine Oasis opened around 1950 as a shadow theatre on Pratinou Street in Pangrati. Bought by filmmaker Vangelis Melissinos, who converted it to cinema. Since the 1980s run by sisters Dia and Maria, dedicated exclusively to cinephile programming. Featured in Le Monde, The Times of London, and American publications. One of Athens' most characterful outdoor screens.

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The curated interior of 10AM Apotheke in Kolonaki, Athens — natural beauty and lifestyle products arranged on warm wooden shelves
Shop

10AM Apotheke

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Mofu Vintage Design
Shop

Mofu Vintage Design

The vintage and contemporary design shop that helped put Sarri Street on the map. Furniture and objects sourced from the US and Europe — 1950s through to 1970s, with the occasional contemporary piece that knows its company. The edit is tight. The finds are real.

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Hyper Hypo

A curated art, design and photography bookshop on Voreou Street, Monastiraki. Opened 2021 by graphic designer Stathis Mitropoulos and former New York Times Style Magazine editor Andreas Kokkinos. Monocle noticed. The right people always find it.

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The Ghika Gallery building, Kolonaki Athens
Kolonaki

Benaki Museum - Ghika Gallery

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The Olive Era shop interior in Athens — artisanal Greek olive oil, ceramics and premium pantry products in a refined setting
Shop

Olive Era

A Greek skincare brand built around bio olive oil, with its Athens flagship on Perikleous behind Syntagma. Amber bottles, taupe labels, an Athens Spirit edition that turns the city's archaeology into illustration.

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Ten Twentyclub

A racquet-sports and wellness club on the Voula beachfront. Padel, tennis, pickleball, ice bath, sauna, sea access. The country club reimagined as a Riviera concept. Members and visitors.

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Cine Paris rooftop open-air cinema in Plaka, Athens — folding chairs under the night sky with the Acropolis glowing in the background
Landmark

Cine Paris

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Exterior of Ikigai Japanese Market on Skoufou Street, Athens
Japanese Market

Ikigai Japanese Market

The first new-generation Japanese grocery and market in Athens, at Skoufou 15 near Syntagma. A Green Garlic Management venue — the same group behind Birdman, Ekiben, Vezené, and Manári — organised around three axes: delicatessen and pantry, butchery, and Japanese liquor. Alongside them: handmade ceramics by Greek and Japanese artists, kitchenware, cookbooks. Open daily 10:00 to midnight.

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Hadrian’s Reservoir

Hadrian’s Reservoir is a Roman cistern at the western base of Lycabettus, commissioned by Emperor Hadrian in 125 CE and completed under Antoninus Pius in 140 CE. Fed by an aqueduct approximately 25 kilometres long cut through solid rock from Mount Parnitha, it supplied Athens with water for over a thousand years. The vaulted interior remains structurally intact. A plain 19th-century white building in Dexameni Square — whose name literally means reservoir — marks the entrance. Cine Dexameni operates directly above.

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The Melissinos Art workshop in Athens — handcrafted leather sandals modelled on ancient Greek designs, made by third-generation poet-sandal maker Pantelis Melissinos
Shop

Melissinos Art

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The Journal

Athens, in long form.

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Black and white columns, Athens

Culture

The Years Greece Woke Up

Seferis won the Nobel. Theodorakis was banned. Mercouri was at Cannes. Greece in the 1960s discovered it was extraordinary — and then the Colonels arrived to remind it who was in charge.

8 min read

Eleni Myrivili, Chief Heat Officer of Athens

Culture

The Woman Cooling the City

Athens created a job that didn't exist anywhere in the world and hired an anthropologist to do it. The brief: stop the city from cooking itself.

5 min read

Zylia entrance, Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London

Culture

The Athens Pipeline. What London’s New Greek Restaurants Actually Owe to Greece.

The best of London’s new Greek restaurants isn’t really London at all. It’s Athens, imported with varying degrees of fidelity by chefs who either grew up there or went back to understand why the city’s dining scene had quietly become one of the most interesting in Europe.

6 min read