Psyri
Gritty former thieves' quarter turned lively maze of bars and street art near the Acropolis.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Psyri in Athens opens on the koutsavakides, the swaggering gang of self-styled tough guys who ran these streets with gambling, protection rackets and knife fights through the 1870s, and for whom the neighborhood's Heroes Square was named as a joke. It follows the arrival, in 1893, of a new police major, Dimitrios Bairaktaris, who took one look at the koutsavakides' look and decided how to break it without ever drawing a gun. You'll also hear how Psyri sat abandoned for a century before its lanes filled with bars again in the 1990s.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Thiseio
Historic pedestrian district beneath a misnamed ancient temple, now full of cafes, galleries and an open-air cinema.
Exarcheia
Bohemian district of anarchist graffiti and radical bookshops, forged by a student uprising.
Monastiraki
Byzantine-convent-turned-flea-market square, ringed by antique stalls and a plague-cursed Ottoman mosque.
Plaka
Labyrinth of neoclassical lanes and hidden Cycladic alleys on the Acropolis's ancient slopes.
Anafiotika
Whitewashed Cycladic-style hillside village of cube houses and narrow, nameless lanes tucked beneath a citadel's rock.
National Historical Museum - Old Parliament House
Neoclassical former parliament chamber turned museum of modern Greek history, from Ottoman rule to World War Two.