Capital and largest city of Greece on the Attic plain beside the Saronic Gulf It is a sprawling, bustling, noisy city of concrete high-rise blocks and car-choked streets around the tranquil, classical majesty of the Acropolis. Ancient Athens, built on the rock of the Acropolis 156 m (512 ft) high, was a powerful Hellenic city-state in the 8th century BC, and for almost 1000 years was the classical centre of Western civilization. Until the Roman general Sulla sacked the city in 86 BC, it was supreme in the arts, philosophy, science, literature and drama, unlike its main rival among the Greek states, militaristic Sparta.
Most of the magnificent architectural remains on the Acropolis were built during the Golden Age of the 5th century BC, under the political leadership of Pericles. These include the Parthenon (447-438 BC), Propylaia (437-432 BC), Temple of Athena Nike (427-424 BC), Erechtheion (395 BC), Theatre of Dionysus (6th-5th century BC), and the Temples of Theseion (449 BC) and Olympelon (550-5 10 BC). Many philosophers made their home there, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle being the best known.
Athens went into further decline after it was sacked by Germanic warrior tribes in AD 267, and it became a provincial Byzantine town. The Turks, who occupied Athens in 1458, were not driven out until 1833, and the following year Greece's new king, Otto, made it the capital of united Greece.
Most of the present city is modern. Athens is now the main banking, shopping and communications centre of Greece, and a major industrial centre with its port at PIRAEUS.
Population (metropolitan area) 3 027 300; (city) 885 700
Locals hypothesize that the legacy of Italian blood and culture in Cologne, colonized by the Romans more than 1500 years ago, makes the people more jovial and lighthearted. Cologne is the largest city on the Rhine.
Kolsch is not only the dialect spoken here but, also the name of their own top-fermented beer. There are more than 4,000 pubs, restaurant's and brewery taverns in Cologne.
Unlike many of the world's large cities, Cologne, with a population of over a million, gets better every day, there are more things to do and see, more new and innovative buildings... more
Travel is an opportunity to learn, whether geography, languages, history or other subjects.
Cologne is situated on the beautiful Rhine River.