Kolonaki: the smart quarter on the slopes
Designer streets, the Benaki, and the café tables of Plateia Kolonakiou under Lycabettus. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Voukourestiou and the arrival into Kolonaki
Come up from Syntagma along Voukourestiou, the jeweller's street, and feel the city change register as you climb. The shopfronts get quieter and more expensive; this is the front door to *Kolonaki*.

2. Plateia Kolonakiou
The square that gives the quarter its name and its rhythm: café tables under the trees, a slow *volta* (the evening stroll) in the making, the well-dressed watching the well-dressed. Take a table and join the watching.

3. Skoufa and Anagnostopoulou (the gallery streets)
Cut along these two streets for the contemporary galleries tucked between the boutiques. Push the door of any that's open — most are free and used to browsers. The art turns over often; whatever's up will be current.

4. Benaki Museum
The great private collection of Greek art and history, Byzantine to modern, in a fine neoclassical house. You needn't do all of it — an hour in two floors is plenty. The rooftop café has the Acropolis in the window.

5. Museum of Cycladic Art
A few minutes on, the spare marble figures that made Cycladic art famous — three thousand years old and startlingly modern. The building is as considered as the collection. Small enough to do well in forty minutes.

6. The leafy steps toward Dexameni
Climb the shaded stone steps that thread up toward Dexameni Square, where the quarter softens into something residential and green under Lycabettus. End here with the city below, then Evangelismos Metro is a short walk down.

Kolonaki: the smart quarter on the slopes