Filopappou Hill and the Pnyx
The green hill facing the Acropolis: where democracy met, and the best Parthenon view in Athens. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Dionysiou Areopagitou / the Pikionis path
Start where the pedestrian boulevard meets the hill and step onto Dimitris Pikionis's paving — hand-laid stone and concrete from the 1950s, an artwork you walk on. Follow it up; the whole approach was designed as a slow reveal of the Acropolis.

2. Church of Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris
A small Byzantine church in the trees, also reworked by Pikionis. Step inside the wooden gate for the courtyard and the shade. Quiet, almost always open, and a good place to pause before the climb steepens.

3. The 'Prison of Socrates'
A set of chambers cut into the rock, traditionally — and almost certainly wrongly — called the cell where Socrates drank the hemlock. The label is a romance; go anyway, for the rock-cut rooms and the story they carry.

4. The Pnyx
The bare rock terrace where the Athenian assembly met and where democracy was, quite literally, invented — citizens voting in the open air, the speaker's platform still here. Stand on the bema and look at the Acropolis. This is the quietest great place in the city.

5. Philopappos Monument (the summit)
The marble tomb of Philopappos, a Roman-era prince, crowns the Hill of the Muses. The climb is gentle and the payoff total: the Parthenon dead ahead, the city and the sea all around. Come for sunset; the marble goes gold and so does the rock opposite.

6. Down to Thiseio
Take the path down the north side toward Thiseio — cafés on the pedestrian street, the Acropolis still over your shoulder, the old Metro 1 station at the bottom. End with a drink on a terrace facing the rock you've just been opposite.

Filopappou Hill and the Pnyx