5 min
50 min
45 min
M1 · M3
168.2 / km² - one reason for the Mixed verdict
2
0
835
+4% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Mixed after dark
The bar streets around Plateia Iroon are busy until late and fine. The northern edge, around Plateia Koumoundourou and Sofokleous, borders the Omonia blocks locals avoid at night; walk home on Ermou or Athinas.
Staying in Psyri
Psyri is the grid immediately north of Ermou, between Monastiraki and Thiseio stations. It is old workshop streets - leather, hardware, tool shops that still open at 07:00 - with bars, mezedopoleia and small clubs in among them, centred on Plateia Iroon. Monastiraki Square is five minutes on foot.
It has changed faster than anywhere else in the centre. Thirty years ago it had a bad name; now it has more bars per street than any district in this guide and a lot of short-let flats above them, priced at about the city median. For a couple who want to eat late and walk everywhere, it is hard to beat on location.
The cost is sleep. The bars run past 03:00 and the drinking spills onto the street, so a room on Plateia Iroon or Miaouli is a room above a party from Thursday to Sunday. The northern edge, around Plateia Koumoundourou, is scruffier and borders the Omonia blocks: book towards Ermou rather than towards Sofokleous.
What works
- Five minutes on foot to Monastiraki Square and station
- The densest cluster of bars and tavernas in central Athens
- Flats priced around the city median, a block from Plaka's rates
- Thiseio and Monastiraki stations at either end
What does not
- Bars run past 03:00 and the noise is on the street, not in the club
- No metro station inside the district itself
- The Koumoundourou end is scruffy and borders the Omonia blocks
- Whole blocks are still shuttered and tagged, which is how it reads at 23:00
Until the early 1990s, Psyri, one of the oldest quarters of Athens, had an ill reputation, but it has now become one of the most fashionable and trendy choices in the centre of Athens for accommodation, entertainment and food hospitality.