Syntagma, the National Garden and the Zappeion
The kilted guards at the Tomb, a shaded royal garden, a marble hall, and the ancient stadium beyond. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Syntagma Square
Start in the city's central square, the marble one that slopes up to Parliament. Time your arrival for the top of an hour and the changing of the guard is up the steps. The square itself is the meeting point of modern Athens — sit on the fountain rim a moment first.

2. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Up the steps below the old royal palace, the *Evzones* in their kilts and pom-pom shoes keep guard over the tomb, carved with the dead of Greece's wars. The changing ceremony runs every hour, the full version on Sunday morning. Stand to the side and watch the slow-motion drill.

3. National Garden
Slip into the royal garden behind Parliament, laid out for Queen Amalia in the 1840s — thirty-eight acres of shade, ponds, palms and wandering peacocks, with Roman mosaics and busts scattered along the paths. The one cool place in the centre on a hot day. Lose yourself; the paths all lead out.

4. The Zappeion
At the garden's southern edge, the grand neoclassical hall built for the 1888 revival of national exhibitions and used in the first modern Olympics. Walk through its circular colonnaded courtyard — open and free — then out onto the formal forecourt facing the avenue.

5. Panathenaic Stadium view
From the Zappeion forecourt, look across Vasileos Konstantinou to the white-marble horseshoe of the stadium that hosted the 1896 Olympics, built into the slope on an ancient stadium's footprint. You can pay to walk the track, or read it for free from the railings opposite.

6. Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch
Cut west to the toppled giant columns of the largest temple in Greece, 700 years in the building, and Hadrian's Arch beside the road — the old boundary between the Greek city and the emperor's new quarter. Read 'this is Athens, the ancient city' on one face. Akropoli metro is a short walk on.

Syntagma, the National Garden and the Zappeion