Running south from the port of Piraeus, the city loosens into a long, pine-fringed coastline that Athenians have called the Riviera for close to a century: a shore that slips through Glyfada, Voula, Vouliagmeni and Varkiza before it thins to a headland and the white columns of Cape Sounion. On one side of the coast road, the Saronic Gulf; on the other, the Hymettus foothills and, always, the city behind. Nowhere else in Greece can you swim in clear water at midday, walk beneath a 5th-century temple at sunset, and gaze at the floodlit Acropolis before nightfall.
Riviera days come in a variety of forms, reflecting its natural seaside location and its proximity to culture, both ancient and modern. Mornings are for the water, a long swim off Astir, a slow float in the mineral lake at Vouliagmeni, or watching the yachts come and go from the marina. Afternoons can go two ways: inland to the antiquities and the museums, or further down the coast toward Sounion and the islands of the Saronic Gulf. Evenings are for long, slow dinners, whether that means grilled fish on a Glyfada terrace or a marina restaurant with the superyachts lit up alongside. There is room here for families and couples, for culture-seekers and sun-seekers and for those who like a little city with their shore.
