ATHENS is not a graceful city. It looks ungainly from just about every approach, its air pollution is dire, its postwar architecture is a disaster, and traffic still clogs the streets despite the recent expansion of the metro. For many of the four million-plus visitors who pass through each year, Athens can seem a dutiful stop. Their priorities usually include visits to the Acropolis and the National Archeological Museum and an evening or two dining in the tavernas of Pláka, one of the few surviving old quarters. Most tourists then get out fast, disillusioned with such sparse evidence of the past and so little apparent charm.

Such are the basic facts - yet somehow the city has the character to transcend them. An exhausting but always stimulating mix of metropolis and backwater, First and Third World, West and East, Greater Athens has seen its population soar from 700,000 to well over four million - over a third of the nation's people - since World War II. The pace of this transformation is reflected in the city's chaotic mix of urban and rural: chickens roost in yards with state-of-the-art cars parked nearby, while eastern-style bazaars vie for space with outlets for Armani and Benetton. And the city's hectic modernity is tempered with an air of intimacy and hominess; as any Greek will tell you, Athens is merely the largest village in the country.

Once you accept this, you'll find that the ancient sites and the Acropolis - supreme monument though it is - are only the most obvious of Athens' attractions . There are startling views to be had from the hills of Lykavitós and Filopáppou ; and, around the foot of the Acropolis, the Pláka has scattered monuments of the Byzantine and medieval town that seemed so exotic to Byron and the Romantics. As you might expect, the city also offers some of the best eating to be found in Greece, with a number of beautiful cafés, garden tavernas and street markets - as well as the most varied nightlife, including traditional music and films in the winter months, and open-air cinema, concerts and classical drama in summer.

 

Outside Athens , the emphasis shifts more exclusively to ancient sites; the beaches along the Attic coast are functional enough escapes for Athenians, but hardly priorities if you are moving on to the islands. Of the sites, the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion is the most popular trip, and rightly so, with its dramatic clifftop position above the cape. Lesser known and less visited are the sanctuaries at Rhamnous and Brauron (Vravróna), both rewarding ruins with beaches nearby. Dedicated Classical pilgrims might also take in the burial mound at Marathon , near a sandy beach, and the Sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis (Elefsína).

Walkers may want to head for the mountains - Párnitha , most compellingly - that ring the city, where springtime hikes reveal some of the astonishing range of Greek wild flowers. Hedonists, however, will already be making escape plans for the islands , which are served by ferries and hydrofoils from the Athenian port-suburb (and heavy industrial centre) of Pireás (Piraeus) and, more selectively, from the two other Attic ferry terminals at Rafína and Lávrio .