Pangrati and the First Cemetery
A lived-in quarter of squares and cafés, then the marble city of the Athenian dead. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Plateia Plastira
Start in the *plateia* that anchors upper Pangrati — cafés round the edge, the *volta* (the evening stroll) starting up by dusk. Take a coffee on the square; this is the neighbourhood at its most itself, neither touristed nor smart, just lived-in.

2. Plateia Varnava
A few streets south, the quieter of Pangrati's two squares, with the church of Agios Spyridon and tables under the trees. Locals come here, not visitors. Sit a while if the light's good; the pace of the whole quarter is set on squares like this.

3. Pangrati backstreets
Walk the streets between the squares — low apartment blocks, balconies thick with plants, a bakery and a kiosk on every corner. Nothing to tick off; this is the texture of a residential Athens that the centre has lost. Wander loosely.

4. First Cemetery — the gate
Enter the *Proto Nekrotafeio*, the first official cemetery of the modern Greek state, opened in 1837. The avenue inside runs uphill between cypresses and marble. Quiet, formal, often empty; treat it as the park-with-tombs it has become.

5. The Sleeping Maiden
Find Yannoulis Chalepas's *Sleeping Maiden* (Koimomeni) — a girl carved in white marble as if merely asleep, the most loved sculpture in the cemetery. Stand with it a moment; the whole place organises itself around this one figure.

6. The Mets edge
Leave by the lower gate into Mets, the steep little quarter of neoclassical houses below the cemetery. Walk the narrow streets back up toward the centre; from here it's a level stroll to *Evangelismos* on line three, or onward to the Acropolis side.

Pangrati and the First Cemetery