South of Athens, the city exhales into sea air and late light. The Athens Riviera unspools from Palaio Faliro to Cape Sounio, a sequence of marinas, pocket coves, piney headlands, and classic beach clubs that ends in marble at the Temple of Poseidon. It is where everyday life meets holiday tempo, where a morning swim slides into an espresso, and where the skyline trades concrete for horizon.
This is an orientation to what is already loved and what is soon to arrive. Four chapters trace the coastline from the civic grace of Flisvos and the SNFCC to the open road beyond Vouliagmeni, from the neighborhood ease of Glyfada and Voula to the future city on the sea taking shape at The Ellinikon. Read it as a starting line, not a finish. Now is the perfect time to discover.
Chapter 01
Flisvos to SNFCC
Areas Included: Flisvos Marina, Palio Faliro and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center
Begin at Flisvos Marina in Palio Faliro, a polished harbor where strollers thread past superyachts and waterside cafés. Parko Flisvou is the neighborhood lawn with playgrounds, bike paths, shade, and the hum of everyday Athens by the sea. A small detour lands you at the Naval Tradition Park in Trokadero, where the cruiser Georgios Averof and the destroyer Velos sit like time capsules you can board.
From Flisvos, the waterfront promenade rolls east with kiosks, benches, and wide views to Aegina on clear days, and it leads straight to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Renzo Piano’s low green hill of culture with the Greek National Opera and the National Library tucked into Mediterranean gardens. Walk up to the rooftop for the two essential lines of the city, Acropolis inland and Saronic Gulf outward, a short, civilized amble that captures the Riviera’s rhythm, public, breezy, and generous.
Chapter 02
Vouliagmeni to Sounio
Areas Included: Vouliagmeni, Varkiza, Anavyssos, Saronida, Lagonisi, Sounio
This is not a coastal footpath. It is a drive or an expert cyclist’s challenge along National Road 91, with the sea in and out of view. Vouliagmeni is the Riviera’s blue chip, an amphitheater of water with the brackish thermal Lake Vouliagmeni tucked beneath honeycomb cliffs, its year round, spring fed warmth a natural spa. Across the bay, the Four Seasons Astir Palace balances the refined modernism of Arion with the midcentury glam of Nafsika, while private Astir Beach lays out the classic grammar of organized seaside life with striped umbrellas, silent swims, and sunset Negronis.
Southbound, the highway skims a string of beach towns. Varkiza opens wide with organized sands and afternoon winds, Lagonisi and Saronida trade in small coves and long lunches, and Anavyssos and Palea Fokea run on a simpler clock with octopus drying on lines, grilled bream, and chilled white poured at tables planted practically in the sand. The road thins, the rock takes over, and then you arrive at Cape Sounio, where the 5th century BCE Temple of Poseidon sits on its headland like a sundial for ships, best met at dusk when the marble learns new colors.
Chapter 03
Glyfada and Voula
Areas Included: Glyfada and Voula
Glyfada is the Riviera’s urban village, all retail streets, palm lined avenues, and a dining scene that prefers ease to effort. Asteria Glyfadas has returned as a glamorous, midcentury tinged beach complex on a storied spit of land, mixing sandy swims by day with polished alfresco dining after dark. In town, the café to cocktail continuum is straightforward, a freddo on the square, seafood over charcoal, then a late drink along the tram line where neon reflects on steel. The old Glyfada Golf Course is being refreshed, but the neighborhood spirit holds steady with locals in linen, kids with gelato, and a steady drift to the water at golden hour.
Just south, Voula is calmer and more domestic in the best way, with well kept municipal beaches, tidy boardwalks, pocket parks, and seafood tavernas that do not need to shout. On weekends, paddleboards head out at first light and families settle in under umbrellas by ten, and between the two suburbs you catch the Riviera’s everyday pleasures from spanakopita at a corner bakery to marinated anchovies at a seaside canteen to the long social twilight that feels like an institution.
Chapter 04
The Ellinikon
Areas Included: Elliniko
All eyes are on The Ellinikon, the vast redevelopment of the former international airport and the Agios Kosmas shoreline that is set to be the crown jewel of the coast. When complete, it will braid a major coastal park with a new waterfront promenade, marinas, cultural venues, residences, hotels, shopping, and a transit linked urban grid. The Metropolitan Park promises one of Europe’s significant green spaces by the sea, while the shoreline opens more fully to the public with beaches and paths that connect rather than divide.
Expect a (actually two) landmark tower(s), new hospitality names, and the thoughtful reuse of Olympic and aviation heritage. If the Riviera today is a sequence of moments, Hellinikon aims to turn it into a continuous experience that is open, walkable, and coherent, a defining chapter that aligns the coast with the best of Mediterranean waterfront life.
Getting Your Bearings
Take the tram from central Athens to Flisvos and Glyfada, then buses or taxis onward to Voula and Vouliagmeni. Save the Vouliagmeni to Sounio leg for a car because there is no continuous seafront walkway. Summer is for beach clubs and late dinners, winter brings clear water and luminous skies, and at any time the rule is simple, swim when you can, linger when you cannot, and always face the light.
PS. Tip a hat to Island Athens Riviera in Varkiza, the club restaurant that helped define the coast after dark, whose co owner Chrysanthos Panas popularized the phrase Athens Riviera and reframed this shoreline as a single destination.
