Athens Street Art: the walls worth the walk

Mythical heroes, INO’s giant figures, praying hands and a wall of wide-eyed cats: a walk through the murals and stencils of Psyrri, Kerameikos, Plaka and the centre, in our own photographs.

Athens is a city of marble, but walk a few streets from the Acropolis and its walls start to talk in paint. Shutters, stairways, car-park gable ends and whole building fronts carry murals, stencils and tags, and the old centre rewards anyone who walks it with an eye on the walls as well as the monuments. This is our own walk, photographed on the streets of the city.

Below the Acropolis

Start in upper Plaka, on the lanes beneath the north slope of the Acropolis. Here, on a run of old stone walls, a hero in a crested helmet wrestles a turquoise many-headed serpent under the painted title “Hercules and Hydra”, signed “the Krah”. Beside it, a face wrapped in snakes stares out from a doorway, a modern Medusa a short climb from the temples of the gods.

Lower down in Plaka, look for smaller things too: a stencilled figure in a striped tunic whose head is an old cine camera, pasted over the yellow plaster of a wall, is the kind of piece that rewards a slow walk rather than a checklist.

In Plaka itself, beside the tables of a taverna, two old-time actors in hats and suits lean on a painted wall in front of a view of the Acropolis; and on a door half hidden by vines, a winged sphinx in lilac and violet is signed “the Krah” and dated 2021.

Psyrri

Psyrri, north of Monastiraki, is the heart of it. Its narrow streets of workshops, tavernas and bars are lined with painted shutters, and the murals change from season to season. On one shuttered shopfront, three cartoon cats peer over a garden fence, one of them perched on a pile of rubbish sacks: the wall is signed “Color Nomads” and “Alex Martinez”, and it is a fitting portrait of a city where street cats are part of daily life.

Between Monastiraki and Thiseio, a covered passage is painted from the steps to the shutters; at night, under its arched glass roof, it looks like a stage set.

In Athens the newest art in the city is often painted a few streets from the oldest.

Kerameikos and the centre

West of Psyrri, towards Kerameikos, the scale grows. On the white gable of a house by a car park, a girl in a long dress holds a sledgehammer almost as tall as she is, painted in soft greys and signed “INO” at the top of the wall. Closer to Syntagma, an entire building front has been painted as a composition of black and white blocks with soft pinks and blues, so that the building itself becomes the canvas.

Look up as you walk the centre, too. INO, whose signature appears on both, has painted a woman in a black balaclava across one gable and, on another, a vast line drawing of figures in black and white that fills a whole wall above the traffic. Elsewhere, a giant pair of praying hands, drawn in fine white lines, rises up the side of an apartment block, and a woman with folded arms stands in a dreamlike landscape on the flank of an office tower.

The City of Athens’ own visitor programme, This is Athens, has run street art walks through Psyrri, Exarchia and Metaxourgeio, and its “with a Local” walks include a street art route through the Historic Centre, Exarchia, Monastiraki, Psyrri and Plaka, led by volunteer Athenians.

How to see it

Street art is the least permanent art in the city. Walls are repainted, shutters change hands and new pieces appear over old ones, so treat any list as a starting point and walk with your eyes open. The light is best in the late afternoon, when the low sun reaches into Psyrri’s narrow streets; at night the painted shutters come into their own as the shops close.

Be a considerate visitor: many murals are on homes and shops, so don’t block doorways or climb on walls, and ask before you photograph people.

Our advice: start below the Acropolis in upper Plaka, drop down through Monastiraki into Psyrri for the late-afternoon light, and finish with dinner in one of its tavernas. If you would like company, book the This is Athens street art walk with a local.