Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
built by Themistocles in 479 BC, and rebuilt by Konon in 394 BC. The wall is broken by
the foundations of two gates; tiny signs mark each one.
The first, the
Sacred Gate
, spanned the Sacred Way and was the one by which pil-
grims from Eleusis entered the city during the annual Eleusian procession. The second,
the
Dipylon Gate
, northeast of the Sacred Gate, was the city's main entrance and where
the Panathenaic Procession began. It was also where the city's prostitutes gathered to of-
fer their services to jaded travellers.
From a platform outside the Dipylon Gate, Pericles gave his famous speech extolling
the virtues of Athens and honouring those who died in the first year of the Peloponnesian
Wars.
Between the Sacred and Dipylon Gates are the foundations of the
Pompeion
, used as
a dressing room for participants in the Panathenaic Procession.
Leading off the Sacred Way to the left as you head away from the city is the
Street of
Tombs
. This avenue was reserved for the tombs of Athens' most prominent citizens. The
surviving stelae (grave slabs) are now in the National Archaeological Museum, and what
you see are mostly replicas. The astonishing array of funerary monuments, and their bas
reliefs, warrant close examination. Ordinary citizens were buried in the areas bordering
the Street of Tombs. One well-preserved stela (up the stone steps on the northern side)
shows a little girl with her pet dog. The site's largest stela is that of sisters Demetria and
Pamphile.
The small but excellent
Keramikos museum
has remarkable stelae and sculptures
from the site, as well as a good collection of vases and terracotta figurines.
ANCIENT PROMENADE
The once traffic-choked streets around Athens' historic centre were transformed
into a spectacular 3km-long pedestrian promenade for the 2004 Olympics and
connect the city's most significant ancient sites. Locals and tourists alike come out
in force for an eveningvolta(walk) along the stunning heritage trail - one of
Europe's longest pedestrian precincts - under the floodlit Acropolis.
The
grand promenade
starts at Dionysiou Areopagitou, opposite the Temple of
Olympian Zeus, and continues along the southern foothills of the Acropolis, all the
way to the Ancient Agora, branching off from Thisio to Keramikos and Gazi, and
north along Adrianou to Monastiraki and Plaka.
Museum of Islamic Art
MUSEUM
