The Academy of Athens

Heading past Syntagma Square and on to Penepistimiou Avenue, you find a pair of buildings regarded as perhaps the finest 19th-century neoclassical designs ever created. The Academy of Athens and the National Library are two-thirds of the so-called Athens Trilogy of Danish-born architect Theophil Hansen. They are astonishing in their grandeur and detail – the Academy being a seat of serious scholarly study and the National Library once housing over two million tomes. Take a moment to admire the symmetry of the grand staircases of the National Library and the figures of Athena and Apollo on the pillars flanking the Academy, along with sculptures of the ever-pensive Plato and Socrates below.