Athens is having another moment. The mythic city ranks #14 in overall Lovability, with its #18 Sights & Landmarks score backed by the Acropolis, Agora and other scenic ruins woven into the cityscape. The new Excavation Museum – more than 1,000 artefacts displayed beneath the Acropolis Museum – opened in 2024 and reinforces a #16 Museums ranking alongside the Benaki and a renovating National Archaeological Museum.
Add a nightlife scene that runs till dawn and a #9 Theatres & Concerts ranking, and the siren song keeps getting louder. A record 8 million foreign visitors arrived in 2024 and hotel keys keep coming, with two new Hiltons now in the city and another on the way, including the landmark Hilton Athens reborn as The Ilisian Athens. Along the Riviera, One&Only Aesthesis anchors rising high-end stays.
Many head for the Athens Riviera, where the Ellinikon megaproject is turning the former airport into a new coastal city: the Riviera Tower is rising to 51 storeys and early park sections and marinas are due by 2026. Mobility is the quiet revolution, with an ambitious metro expansion adding more than 15 new stations to ease congestion. Above ground, the new 40,000-seat Panathinaikos stadium, opening in 2027, will give that #9 Theatres & Concerts ranking yet another big-night boost.