In ancient times Athens' political, administrative and cultural heart, today the Ancient Agora in Monastiraki is a green landscape dotted with crumbling ruins. It is here that Socrates and St Paul made their public speeches, and where democracy was born.
More than 2000 years later, the site is unsurprisingly a jumble of ruins, but it's not difficult to conjure up the life that it had.
Highlights include the Temple of Hephaestus, with friezes depicting images of Theseus from the myths, the Stoa Attalou, thought to be a precursor to the modern-day shopping mall, the Temple of Apollo Patroos and the Bouleuterion.