Athens Byzantine Walking Tour
Athens Byzantine Walking Tour is the best introduction of Athens in Byzantine Times (330 AC -1453 AC). We guide you through the most important cultural sites of Byzantine Athens. Athens Byzantine Walking Tour starts by a visit at Byzantine and Christian Museum, which is based in Athens, one of Greece’s national museums. With over 25,000 artifacts in its possession, dated from between the 3rd to the 20th century AD (artifacts of the Early Christian, Byzantine, Medieval, post-Byzantine and later periods), and their provenance encompasses the entire Greek world, as well as regions in which Hellenism flourished, this museum is a veritable treasury of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art and culture.
After the first part of the tour and a small coffee break, we take you around in the beautiful restored small churches of the 11th century and so by a nice walk through the National Gardens and Queen’s Olga blessing, the patroness of the Christian Art at the end of the 19th century. These churches have withstood the ravages of time and the interventions of man and they constitute the sole complete architectural landmarks of Byzantine Athens. On foot also we rediscover the neighborhoods of this period and we find traces of the byzantine culture until nowadays through even tasting. We explore and learn how Byzantine Empire came to rule a big part of Eastern Europe during the middle Ages and formed the destination of modern Europe.
In this tour we find out how the topography of Athens was influenced by the needs of Christianity. Not only were churches built but from the mid-fifth century, many ancient temples were converted into Christian churches. For example the Parthenon became the church of the Virgin of Athens while the Temple of Hephaestus inside the Ancient Agora was dedicated to Saint George.
Made for visitors with special interest in Byzantine Art and Culture and Medieval History, this tour is being offered only as a private tour.
