Kolonaki is the residential quarter of central Athens on the southern slope of Lycabettus Hill, between Syntagma and the Evangelismos hospital. Its name means “little column”, after a marble column believed in Ottoman times to ward off epidemics. For two thousand years the slope was grazing land around the reservoir Hadrian's engineers finished in AD 140; it became a bourgeois quarter after 1890, the address of Greece's establishment after the war, and the capital of its café culture from the 1980s. Today it holds the Benaki, Cycladic, Byzantine and War museums, the Lycabettus funicular, and a Metro Line 4 station under construction beneath its square, with a September 2032 target for the line.
Scroll, and the map travels with you through three thousand years.
IAntiquity
Myth and antiquity
IAntiquity
The rock Athena dropped
Myth and antiquity
Every Athenian story about this hill starts with an accident. Athena, the myth goes, was carrying a mountain across Attica to make her Acropolis taller when a crow flew up with bad news: the daughters of King Kekrops had opened the basket she had forbidden them to touch. Furious, she let the rock fall where it landed. That rock is Lycabettus, 277 metres of limestone that still blocks the view north from the Parthenon. The crow, the story adds, was banned from the Acropolis for ever.
Plato offered a stranger memory in the Critias: in a lost golden age, he wrote, the Acropolis was so vast that it ran all the way out to Lycabettus. For classical Athenians the hill was outside the walls, wooded, a little wild, and so proverbially big that Aristophanes used it as a byword for anything enormous.
For most of its history this slope lay outside built-up Athens. That is the point worth holding on to as you scroll: the mansions, the cafés and the museum quarter all arrived late, on a hillside long given over to pine, flocks and the gods. Our guide to climbing Lycabettus today picks up where the myth leaves off.
IIAD 140
Hadrian's water
Roman Athens, 2nd century AD
Hadrian gave Athens water. His engineers cut an aqueduct about 20 km long, largely underground, from the foothills of Mount Parnitha to this slope of Lycabettus. Here it emptied into a great reservoir, the dexameni, completed in AD 140 under his successor Antoninus Pius.1 The square above it still carries the name: Plateia Dexamenis.
The system ran for centuries and then silted into memory. In 1870, during works to restore the city's water supply, the buried reservoir was found again, and a new reservoir built on top of it served a thirsty capital until 1940. The Roman tank is still there, under the paving where Athenians now sit with a coffee and watch the open-air cinema. The square is one of our favourite places for coffee in Kolonaki.
And it may work again. In 2025 the Athens water company announced a trial that uses the old aqueduct to supply non-potable water to civic buildings and, in time, around 80 homes:2 a drought-era city borrowing an emperor's idea.
IIIto 1833
Goats, a monastery and a column against the plague
Byzantine and Ottoman Athens, to 1833
Before it was smart, this was Katsikadika, "goat-ville". Under Ottoman rule the slopes were fields, vineyards and shepherds' pens, and sheep and goats were still grazing around Dexameni in the early 20th century. Among the few buildings to survive from those centuries is a religious one: the Petraki Monastery, whose church dates to the 10th century and which takes its popular name from a monk, Parthenios Petrakis, who restored it in 1673. It still stands, walled and green, behind Evangelismos.
On the summit stands a whitewashed chapel; according to an inscription in its floor, it was founded in the time of Metropolitan Benedict, 1782 to 1785. It is the Agios Georgios you see lit up every night.
And then there was the column. Athenians under Ottoman rule fought epidemics with ritual: twin calves yoked to a plough and a cauldron of things gathered from the houses of the sick were buried in a pit, and a column was planted on top to keep the sickness down.3 The columns were thought to guard the city's health. The third of them was set up at Dexameni, and it gave the whole area its name: Kolonaki, the little column.
IV1834–1900
A capital climbs the hill
The new capital, 1834 to 1900
When Athens became capital in 1834 and King Otto's palace rose on Syntagma (today the Parliament), the city began pushing east along the old road to Kifisia, the future Vasilissis Sofias. One of the first great houses out here belonged to a Frenchwoman: Sophie de Marbois, Duchess of Plaisance, eccentric philhellene, whose Villa Ilissia went up between 1840 and 1848 to designs traditionally credited to Stamatios Kleanthis. It has housed the Byzantine and Christian Museum since 1930.
Building really took off after 1890. Along Vasilissis Sofias rose the mansions of the new money: the Benakis family home on the corner of Koumbari, which Antonis Benakis turned into the Benaki Museum (founded 1930); and Ernst Ziller's Stathatos mansion, begun in 1895, now the elegant second wing of the Museum of Cycladic Art. Up the slope, the 1880s gave the city Evangelismos hospital, opened in 1884 and today one of the largest hospitals in Greece. If that is why you are in Athens, read our guide to staying near Athens hospitals.
Even so, around 1900 the square was a dirt crossroads that flooded in winter and choked with dust in summer. A bourgeois quarter was being drawn on a hillside that had not quite stopped being countryside.
V1900–1940
Writers at Dexameni, and the first apartment blocks
1900 to 1940
In 1906 the writer Pavlos Nirvanas walked up to Dexameni with a Kodak and found Alexandros Papadiamantis, the great, shy novelist of Skiathos, in Barba-Yannis' little café. He coaxed him outside into the sun.4 The photographs he took that day are the images of Papadiamantis every Greek knows. Dexameni became the hill's literary perch; its regulars over the years included Kazantzakis, Sikelianos and Varnalis.
Down the slope, a neighbourhood was being named for a revolution. The streets meeting at the square honour the Filiki Etaireia, the secret society behind 1821: Skoufa, Tsakalof and Xanthou are named after its three founders, Anagnostopoulou after one of its early leaders. The square's official name is still Plateia Filikis Etaireias. Most accounts say the old plague column was later moved down here from Dexameni, and "Kolonaki Square" stuck.
Then came concrete. A 1929 law allowed flats to be owned separately, floor by floor, and helped the Athenian polykatoikia, the apartment block, spread. Kolonaki got the best of it: Kitsikis' Skoufa 59 (1929), Panais Manouilidis' Bauhaus block at Skoufa and Sina (1932), Emmanuel Lazaridis' Irakleitou 16 (1936), by the architect of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Researchers have recorded about a thousand interwar and earlier buildings in the Kolonaki and Lycabettus area.5 In 1930 to 1932 Helena Schilizzi built a house on Vasilissis Sofias for her husband Eleftherios Venizelos; after his death she sold it to Britain, and since 1936 it has been the British ambassador's residence.
VI1941–1944
Merlin Street, and the zone they called "Skobia"
Occupation and December 1944
Occupation came to the smartest street first. At Merlin 6, a few steps from the square, the Gestapo set up its headquarters;6 arrested resistance fighters were brought here for interrogation and torture, and the lists for the Haidari camp and for the executions were drawn up here.7 Today the building is in ordinary commercial use, with shops at street level.
The Occupation ruined many of the old Kolonaki families financially. Then, weeks after liberation in October 1944, Athens turned on itself. In the Dekemvriana, the December battle between ELAS and the British-backed government, the British and government forces were squeezed into a strip from Kolonaki down to Syntagma and the Grande Bretagne hotel, under General Ronald Scobie. The left called the British and government-held enclave «Σκομπία», Scobie-land,8 after the general who commanded it.
Lycabettus, quiet for millennia, looked down on a city fighting itself street by street.
VII1950s–80s
The establishment quarter
1950s to 1980s
Post-war Kolonaki was the address of power: ministers, shipowners, publishers, diplomats. The embassies spread along Vasilissis Sofias, and a resident later remembered that after the war there were only four cars in the neighbourhood, one of them Papagos' Cadillac.9 Kolonaki was not Athens' Left Bank; that was Exarchia, a short walk and a political universe away. Kolonaki was where the other side drank its coffee.
But it was also where artists drank theirs. Hatzidakis, Tsarouchis, Tetsis and their circle sat in the cafés of the square and Dexameni. In April 1965 the funicular opened, running in a tunnel up the hill, and that same year Anna Synodinou willed into being the Lycabettus Theatre, Takis Zenetos' metal amphitheatre in the old quarry that became the summer stage of a generation. In 1975 the War Museum opened on Vasilissis Sofias. Odysseas Elytis, Nobel laureate in 1979, lived in a small flat at Skoufa 23 until his death in 1996.
After the fall of the junta in 1974 the neighbourhood's social life exploded. By the 1980s Kolonaki was the capital of Greek café culture, and the Kolonakiotis, the Kolonaki type, became a stock figure: well-dressed, well-connected, faintly ridiculous to everyone else.
VIII1990–2019
Freddo, fashion, and the long hangover
1990 to 2019
On 20 September 1990 a café called Da Capo opened at Tsakalof 1 with green chairs, small round tables and Italian panini.10 Athens Voice credits it with serving the first freddo, the drink that pushed the frappé aside; prime ministers and football-club owners sat at the same tables. Kolonaki in the 1990s was where Greece came to look at itself, and the high-street chains moved in.
The bill came due after 2008. The crisis closed shops, notably on Solonos, and the shopping district pulled back to its old core between Syntagma, the square and Marasli. Yet the art world moved in rather than out. Gagosian opened its Athens gallery in 2009 at 3 Merlin Street, almost opposite the building where the Gestapo once held its prisoners, and since 2020 it has shown in a neoclassical house on Anapiron Polemou, up the hill. For where we drink now, see our guide to drinks in Kolonaki.
IX2020 → 2032
A station under the square
2020 to today
Since October 2021 the heart of Kolonaki has been a hole. Fences went up around the square for Metro Line 4; by late 2024 the shaft was 28 metres deep on its way to 35,11 a station slotting under the lines that already cross the city. In April 2026 Hellenic Metro set September 2032 as the new target for the whole line.12 Until then our guide to getting around Athens covers the lines that already run, and the crowd has drifted uphill, to Dexameni, Xenokratous and the quiet streets under Lycabettus.
The neighbourhood is having a second wind anyway: the old kafeneio on Loukianou has reopened, and Ratka is still on Charitos, as it has been since 1975. Our guide to eating like a local in Kolonaki has the current list. Hadrian's aqueduct is being trialled as a water supply again. The Lycabettus Theatre has summer seasons once more. And the hill itself has become a barometer of the climate: on days of extreme fire risk the city can close Lycabettus completely, as it did on 22 July 2026.13
Up at Dexameni, people still sit over coffee above Hadrian's tank, while 35 metres under the square below them a new station takes shape.
The places we actually use. It opens on our own picks; tap a category for the rest, and tap any place for our tip, phone and directions. Then choose which apartment to measure from: our 1-bedroom under Lycabettus or our 2-bedroom by Evangelismos. Times are flat-ground walking estimates, and Kolonaki is steep, so allow longer uphill.
Walking minutes from
17 places
about 1 min on foot
Eat
A family taverna on Xenokratous since 1968, in a shop the Filippou family has run since 1923.
A Kolonaki institution since 1975: restaurant and bar with pavement tables on Charitos. Book ahead (it asks for reservations) and call for the day's hours, which it does not publish.
The classic café at the top of Tsakalof, with its green chairs: the square's front row since 1990. Self-service: order and pay at the counter, then take a table.
Blue-chip contemporary art in a neoclassical house at 22 Anapiron Polemou, open Tuesday to Saturday. Its first Athens gallery, from 2009, was on Merlin Street.
Officially named after the Filiki Etaireia, which is why Skoufa, Tsakalof and Xanthou meet here. For now it is a fenced Metro Line 4 construction site, so the cafés and life have moved to the streets around it.
The practical things guests ask us in the first hour.
Metro
Evangelismos (Line 3) is on the neighbourhood's east edge and runs straight to the airport. Syntagma (Lines 2 and 3) is about 15 minutes downhill on foot. A Kolonaki station on the new Line 4 is being built under the square; Hellenic Metro's target for the whole line is September 2032.
Hospital and emergencies
Evangelismos General Hospital, one of the largest in Greece, is on the east edge of the neighbourhood. In an emergency call 112 (works from any phone), or 166 for an ambulance.
Pharmacies
Look for the green cross: pharmacies are spread through the neighbourhood. Every pharmacy window posts which ones are on out-of-hours duty that night.
Taxis
Yellow taxis can be hailed in the street. By phone: Parthenon radio taxi +30 210 532 3300, or Kosmos +30 210 411 8300 (18300 from a Greek mobile). Or use an app:
The funicular's lower station is at the top of Ploutarchou, on Aristippou. The city may close the whole hill on days of extreme fire risk, as it did on 22 July 2026, so check current notices on hot, windy days.
Everyday shopping
Supermarkets, minimarkets and kiosks (periptera, for water, snacks and transit tickets) are spread through the streets. Ask us for the nearest ones to your apartment when you arrive.
Kolonaki means "little column" in Greek. The name comes from a marble column of about two metres that, in Ottoman-era Athens, was believed to guard the city against epidemics. Most accounts say it first stood at Dexameni and was later moved to the main square, whose official name is Plateia Filikis Etaireias.
What is Kolonaki known for?
Kolonaki is the upscale residential quarter of central Athens on the southern slope of Lycabettus Hill, known for its café culture, designer and Greek-label shopping, galleries and a cluster of major museums on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue: the Benaki, the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Byzantine and Christian Museum and the War Museum.
Is Kolonaki safe?
We have lived in Kolonaki for more than a decade and it is one of the calmer parts of central Athens: residential, well lit and busy with locals into the evening. Normal city precautions apply, and the thing visitors notice most is the steepness of the upper streets rather than crime. Our guide to safety in Athens covers the rest of the city. Read our Athens safety guide.
Is Kolonaki a good area to stay in Athens?
Kolonaki suits travellers who want a quiet, residential base within walking distance of the sights: Syntagma is about 15 minutes downhill on foot and Evangelismos metro (Line 3) reaches the airport directly. It is less suited to anyone who wants to step out of the door into Plaka: the Acropolis main gate is about 26 minutes on foot from Kolonaki Square, or a metro ride with a change.
How old is Kolonaki?
The slopes were grazing land until the 19th century, and Athenians nicknamed the area Katsikadika, "goat-ville". It developed as a bourgeois quarter mainly after 1890, its interwar apartment blocks spread after a 1929 law allowed flats to be owned separately, and its oldest surviving structures are Hadrian's reservoir at Dexameni (AD 140) and the Petraki Monastery, whose church dates to the 10th century.
What is there to do in Kolonaki?
Climb or ride the funicular up Lycabettus for the view, spend a morning in the Benaki or Cycladic museums, walk Skoufa Street to see some of the best 1930s apartment buildings in Athens, and end the day at Dexameni, where an open-air cinema runs in the warm months.
How do you get to the top of Lycabettus from Kolonaki?
Either walk up the stepped paths from the top of Kolonaki, a steep climb with stairs, or take the funicular from its lower station on Aristippou Street, which opened in 1965 and runs in a tunnel. The hill may close on days of extreme fire risk, as it did on 22 July 2026, so check current notices before you go.
Is there a metro station in Kolonaki?
Not yet in the square itself: the nearest stations are Evangelismos (Line 3, at the eastern edge), Syntagma and Panepistimio. A Kolonaki station on the new Metro Line 4 is being built 35 metres under Kolonaki Square, and Hellenic Metro's current target for the line is September 2032.
What happened in Kolonaki during the war?
During the German occupation the Gestapo used a building at Merlin Street 6, near Kolonaki Square, as its headquarters and interrogation centre. In the December 1944 fighting in Athens, Kolonaki was part of the zone held by British and government forces under General Ronald Scobie, which the left nicknamed "Skobia".
What is Dexameni in Kolonaki?
Dexameni is a small square on the upper edge of Kolonaki named after the reservoir beneath it, the terminus of Hadrian's aqueduct, completed in AD 140, found again in 1870 and built over with a new reservoir. It has an open-air summer cinema, cafés, and literary history: the famous 1906 photographs of the writer Alexandros Papadiamantis were taken at a café here.
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