Greek Easter falls on May 2 in 2027, and the school break runs two weeks around it. Kids dye eggs red on Holy Thursday, carry candles to church at midnight on Saturday, and crack eggs together on Sunday before the lamb comes off the spit. The rest of spring is for getting outside before the heat. Here's what we checked, from the zoo at Spata to the temple at Sounio.
Open House Athens is the city's yearly architecture festival. For a few days, dozens of buildings, from private homes and modern workspaces to historic monuments and cultural institutions, open their doors for guided tours led by volunteers.
Kids get to step behind facades they pass every day and discover the design and history inside. It suits curious school-age kids and teens more than toddlers.
This is Athens City Festival is the City of Athens' own yearly festival. Events pop up in neighborhoods and parks across the city: outdoor activities, music and entertainment, traditional events, and a strand made for families.
There is no single venue or main show. Not every event is pitched at kids, so families pick from the program the ones that suit their children and their part of town.
A national museum of Byzantine art in the Villa Ilissia, an 1848 mansion built for the Duchess of Plaisance. More than 25,000 objects span the 3rd century to the modern era: icons, frescoes, marble carvings, pottery, textiles and manuscripts, plus the wall paintings of a Byzantine church from Episkopi in Evrytania.
Free printed educational material for families waits at the gallery entrance, and the garden has a cafe.
A flat-topped rock 150 m above sea level, crowned by temples built in the fifth century BC: the Parthenon, the Propylaea gateway, the Erechtheion and the small Temple of Athena Nike. Kids can spot the Erechtheion porch held up by stone women (the caryatids), and the ancient Theatre of Dionysus sits on the south slope.
Suits school-age kids who know a few Greek myths more than toddlers.
The Ancient Agora was the marketplace and meeting ground of ancient Athens, on the slope below the Acropolis. Paths lead past the Temple of Hephaestus, the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles and the remains of law courts and shops, under oak and laurel trees planted since 1954.
The rebuilt Stoa of Attalos holds the site museum, where exhibits show how Athenian democracy worked.
The National Garden is a 19th-century English-style park behind the Parliament, with winding paths, small bridges and about 6,600 trees. Kids head for the duck pond and goldfish pond, then the playground and the Children's Library. A small Botanical Museum, a sundial and Roman ruins add a little history.
Bikes and scooters can't be ridden inside, which keeps the paths calm for toddlers on foot.
Stavros Niarchos Park is the 21-hectare green space around the Renzo Piano-designed cultural center that houses the Greek National Opera and the National Library. Kids can run the Great Lawn, try the Sound Garden, find their way through the Labyrinth and play at the playgrounds.
Fountains in the seawater canal dance to music through the day. It is the world's largest public Mediterranean garden.
The only zoo in Greece, home to more than 1,500 animals of about 220 species across 81 hectares. The African Savannah has giraffes, zebras, white rhinos and cheetahs, with a giraffe feeding station.
Elsewhere are Asian elephants, chimpanzees, lions, tigers, and wolves and brown bears in the Greek Forest, plus three walk-through aviaries, a lemur forest and a farm where kids can pet goats and ponies.
Once the summer retreat of the Greek royal family, Tatoi is a protected forest of Aleppo pines, cypresses and plane trees, with 40 historic buildings spread across the grounds.
Kids can walk, bike or picnic on the trails, see the palace from outside, visit the royal cemetery, or head to the artificial Kithara lake for a view over the whole Attica basin.
A protected pine and cypress forest on the slopes of Mount Hymettus, crossed by footpaths, cycling routes and viewpoints, most of them north of the monastery.
At its center is Kaisariani Monastery, whose church dates to around 1100 and is painted inside with frescoes from 1682. Plane trees, poplars and an olive grove surround it, along with the old refectory and a Byzantine bath house.
Lycabettus is a limestone hill rising 277 meters over central Athens, the highest point in the city center, with pine trees around its base. A funicular runs up inside a 210-meter tunnel from Kolonaki in about 3 minutes, or families can climb the trail. At the top sit the Chapel of St. George, a café-restaurant, an open-air theater and views across the city to the Acropolis.
The Temple of Poseidon stands on the headland at Cape Sounion, almost 60 meters above the sea, which surrounds it on three sides. Built around 444 to 440 BC, it still has 15 of its original 34 Doric marble columns standing.
Kids can hunt for the name of Lord Byron carved into the base of one column, then find the ruins of the Temple of Athena close by.
Greek Easter falls on May 2 in 2027, and the school break runs two weeks around it. Kids dye eggs red on Holy Thursday, carry candles to church at midnight on Saturday, and crack eggs together on Sunday before the lamb comes off the spit. The rest of spring is for getting outside before the heat. Here's what we checked, from the zoo at Spata to the temple at Sounio.
Open House Athens is the city's yearly architecture festival. For a few days, dozens of buildings, from private homes and modern workspaces to historic monuments and cultural institutions, open their doors for guided tours led by volunteers.
Kids get to step behind facades they pass every day and discover the design and history inside. It suits curious school-age kids and teens more than toddlers.
This is Athens City Festival is the City of Athens' own yearly festival. Events pop up in neighborhoods and parks across the city: outdoor activities, music and entertainment, traditional events, and a strand made for families.
There is no single venue or main show. Not every event is pitched at kids, so families pick from the program the ones that suit their children and their part of town.
A national museum of Byzantine art in the Villa Ilissia, an 1848 mansion built for the Duchess of Plaisance. More than 25,000 objects span the 3rd century to the modern era: icons, frescoes, marble carvings, pottery, textiles and manuscripts, plus the wall paintings of a Byzantine church from Episkopi in Evrytania.
Free printed educational material for families waits at the gallery entrance, and the garden has a cafe.
A flat-topped rock 150 m above sea level, crowned by temples built in the fifth century BC: the Parthenon, the Propylaea gateway, the Erechtheion and the small Temple of Athena Nike. Kids can spot the Erechtheion porch held up by stone women (the caryatids), and the ancient Theatre of Dionysus sits on the south slope.
Suits school-age kids who know a few Greek myths more than toddlers.
The Ancient Agora was the marketplace and meeting ground of ancient Athens, on the slope below the Acropolis. Paths lead past the Temple of Hephaestus, the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles and the remains of law courts and shops, under oak and laurel trees planted since 1954.
The rebuilt Stoa of Attalos holds the site museum, where exhibits show how Athenian democracy worked.
The National Garden is a 19th-century English-style park behind the Parliament, with winding paths, small bridges and about 6,600 trees. Kids head for the duck pond and goldfish pond, then the playground and the Children's Library. A small Botanical Museum, a sundial and Roman ruins add a little history.
Bikes and scooters can't be ridden inside, which keeps the paths calm for toddlers on foot.
Stavros Niarchos Park is the 21-hectare green space around the Renzo Piano-designed cultural center that houses the Greek National Opera and the National Library. Kids can run the Great Lawn, try the Sound Garden, find their way through the Labyrinth and play at the playgrounds.
Fountains in the seawater canal dance to music through the day. It is the world's largest public Mediterranean garden.
The only zoo in Greece, home to more than 1,500 animals of about 220 species across 81 hectares. The African Savannah has giraffes, zebras, white rhinos and cheetahs, with a giraffe feeding station.
Elsewhere are Asian elephants, chimpanzees, lions, tigers, and wolves and brown bears in the Greek Forest, plus three walk-through aviaries, a lemur forest and a farm where kids can pet goats and ponies.
Once the summer retreat of the Greek royal family, Tatoi is a protected forest of Aleppo pines, cypresses and plane trees, with 40 historic buildings spread across the grounds.
Kids can walk, bike or picnic on the trails, see the palace from outside, visit the royal cemetery, or head to the artificial Kithara lake for a view over the whole Attica basin.
A protected pine and cypress forest on the slopes of Mount Hymettus, crossed by footpaths, cycling routes and viewpoints, most of them north of the monastery.
At its center is Kaisariani Monastery, whose church dates to around 1100 and is painted inside with frescoes from 1682. Plane trees, poplars and an olive grove surround it, along with the old refectory and a Byzantine bath house.
Lycabettus is a limestone hill rising 277 meters over central Athens, the highest point in the city center, with pine trees around its base. A funicular runs up inside a 210-meter tunnel from Kolonaki in about 3 minutes, or families can climb the trail. At the top sit the Chapel of St. George, a café-restaurant, an open-air theater and views across the city to the Acropolis.
The Temple of Poseidon stands on the headland at Cape Sounion, almost 60 meters above the sea, which surrounds it on three sides. Built around 444 to 440 BC, it still has 15 of its original 34 Doric marble columns standing.
Kids can hunt for the name of Lord Byron carved into the base of one column, then find the ruins of the Temple of Athena close by.
