Best Of

Normal opening time, but since it is just as it opens or a few minutes before, you beat most of the crowds- I think our bus was the first to arrive in the lot. We had plenty of time for a guided walk around the exteriors of the Parthenon and the ruins of a few other structures, and see a few features often missed by others. You can't enter any of the building ruins. The site is littered with exposed rock and limestone rubble of old structures so not that easy to negotiate. There was actually a temple that pre-dates the Parthenon underneath of it and you can see some of the foundation that has been exposed during previous excavations. I think what and how much you see is highly dependent on the local guide and crowds. We also had a brief period to investigate on our own. You'll see the Propylaia entrance, the nearby small temple of Athena Nike, the partially reconstructed (always with scaffolding somewhere) Parthenon, the Erechtheion, famous for its porch of the Caryatids (you'll see copies, the originals are in the new museum which you visit next), and you'll look down on the remains of the Odeion and partially rebuilt Theater of Dionysus (Google Yanni Live at the Acropolis ) on the hill sides. By the time we left, large groups were arriving and which actually made it hard to exit! The timing was perfect, however, because after leaving the Acropolis we went down hill to the New Acropolis Museum which wasn't crowed- maybe the throngs were headed there next?