A piece of the Aegean islands on the Athenian rock
In the mid-19th century, when the new Greek state needed craftsmen to build its first capital, stonemasons and builders were brought from the island of Anafi — a tiny Cycladic island northeast of Santorini. They settled on the steep northeast slope of the Acropolis, above the existing Plaka neighbourhood, and built the kind of houses they knew: small cube structures, flat roofs, thick whitewashed walls, narrow lanes between them. They called the area Anafiotika.
The city of Athens officially ordered the demolition of Anafiotika multiple times during the 20th century. It survived, semi-legally, partly through stubbornness and partly because the slope it sits on is too precipitous to develop commercially. Today it numbers roughly 40 inhabited buildings, four small Byzantine churches and a handful of cats who regard visitors with professional indifference.
It is, in all likelihood, the strangest neighbourhood in any European capital.
Finding your way in
Anafiotika has no real entrance. The most direct approach from Plaka is up Stratonos street — a stepped lane that climbs past the church of Agios Nikolaos Rangavas (11th century, one of the oldest standing buildings in Athens) and continues upward to where the white walls begin. Another approach is via Thespidos street, which curves around the base of the rock and becomes a path through the neighbourhood’s lower edge.
Once inside, the “streets” are in many places not wide enough to pass someone walking the other direction without turning sideways. Some sections have no official name. The lanes dead-end against the Acropolis archaeological zone wall, which here is a rough stone barrier about waist height, on the other side of which the ground drops away to the north slope excavations.
You cannot get genuinely lost — the rock is always above you and Plaka is always below. Navigate by the sound of the city.
What to look for and photograph
The dominant visual is whitewash and bougainvillea. Every building is painted bright white and most are draped in magenta or orange flowering vines. The contrast against the grey limestone of the Acropolis wall above, and the blue of the sky in clear weather, is exactly as vivid as it looks in photographs.
The church of Agios Georgios (St George) near the top of the neighbourhood is the most photographed single building — a tiny cube church with a bell above the door, set against a terrace that looks directly south. In early morning light it looks like a painting.
The church of Agios Symeon, slightly lower and to the east, has a small courtyard with a view eastward toward Lycabettus Hill — the second-highest point in the city visible across the rooftops below.
The cats are resident, friendly and cooperative photographic subjects.
How Anafiotika fits into a day
The neighbourhood is too small to occupy a full day. The natural pairing is with an Acropolis visit — come down the south slope, turn east along Dionysiou Areopagitou, climb back up through Plaka via Stratonos, spend 30–45 minutes in Anafiotika, then continue to the summit from the east entrance or return to Plaka for lunch.
Alternatively, Anafiotika works as an early-morning photo walk before the Acropolis opens. The light on the white walls is excellent from 7–9 am, the lanes are empty, and the neighbourhood’s cats are at their most active.
The night walk through Plaka and Anafiotika takes a different angle entirely — the whitewashed lanes lit by small terrace lamps at night have a quality that is hard to describe and worth experiencing. It is one of the few Athens tours that genuinely feels different from what you would discover independently.
The view down and why it is different
From the upper edge of Anafiotika, looking south and southwest, you see Athens at an angle unavailable from anywhere else in the city. The Acropolis Museum is directly below (you are above it). The Koukaki neighbourhood spreads out to the south; beyond it, on clear days, you can see the sea toward Piraeus. The pedestrian promenade on Dionysiou Areopagitou, which looks wide and organised from street level, is a thin grey line far below.
The Acropolis north slope — the theatre of Dionysus, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus — is visible directly below the archaeological boundary fence. In summer, when the Odeon hosts concerts as part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival, you can sometimes hear the music from the upper lanes of Anafiotika late at night.
For the full context of what you are seeing, the Athens highlights hidden gems tour includes Anafiotika as a stop and connects it to the city’s broader layering of ancient, medieval and modern history.