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Everyone who comes to Athens climbs the Acropolis. Far fewer notice what lies at its feet to the east: a queen's garden, a hall where the modern Olympics found a roof, a stadium cut from a single mountain's marble, and the stumps of the largest temple Greece ever built. All four sit within one kilometre of each other, and you can walk the lot before lunch.

We send guests on this walk almost every morning. From our door on Webster Street in Koukaki, you stroll down the pedestrian sweep of Dionysiou Areopagitou, pass the Acropolis Museum, and in about fifteen minutes Hadrian's Arch rises ahead of you. Behind it, Athens turns green.

This is one of the best things to do near the Acropolis when the rock itself is crowded and the sun is high. Two of the four stops are free. All four tell the same story from different centuries: a city that keeps rebuilding itself on top of its own past.

The National Garden of Athens: a queen's obsession

The National Garden is free, open every day from sunrise to sunset, and it is the coolest place in central Athens on a hot day. Step through the gate on Amalias Avenue and the traffic noise drops away within twenty paces.

It began as a private passion. In 1838 Queen Amalia, the young German-born wife of King Otto, ordered a garden for the new palace, today's Parliament. Her agronomist, Friedrich Schmidt, brought in more than 500 plant species from around the world. Many died in the Attic heat. Enough survived to give Athens 15.5 hectares of shade. The tall Washingtonia palms at the main entrance are said to have been planted by the queen herself.

For decades it was the Royal Garden, closed to ordinary Athenians for most of the day. It became the National Garden in the 1920s, and the city has treated it as a shared back yard ever since. Henry Miller, who walked here in 1939, called it "the quintessence of a park".

What to look for inside:

• The duck pond and its terrapins, which children find before anything else
• A Roman mosaic floor and scattered column drums, uncovered when the garden was dug
• The sundial near the main entrance
• Busts of Kapodistrias, Greece's first governor, and the poets Solomos and Valaoritis, half hidden in the foliage
• The small Botanical Museum, the children's library and the shaded café

Give it 45 minutes, or two hours if you are travelling with children. Follow the paths south and the trees open onto a wide yellow building with a colonnade. That is your second stop.

Zappeion: the building that brought the Olympics home

The Zappeion was the first building in the world put up for the modern Olympic Games, and walking around it costs nothing. It stands where the National Garden ends, facing the columns of Olympian Zeus across the avenue.

Its story belongs to Evangelos Zappas, a fighter in the Greek War of Independence who made a fortune abroad and decided to spend it reviving the ancient Games. He paid for Olympic contests in Athens decades before Pierre de Coubertin's 1896 revival, and left money for a hall to house them. Zappas did not live to see it. The cornerstone was laid in 1874 to a design by the Danish architect Theophil Hansen, and the doors opened on 20 October 1888.

Eight years later, during the first modern Olympics in 1896, fencers duelled inside it. In 1906 it served as the Olympic Village. In 1979 Greece signed its accession to the European Community in the same hall.

Today the Zappeion is a conference and exhibition centre, so the interior is not always open. When the doors are, step in to see the circular open-air atrium ringed by columns. Otherwise the pleasure is outside: the Corinthian portico, the fountain, the outdoor cinema and café next door, and locals walking their dogs at dusk.

Panathenaic Stadium: 2,300 years of finish lines

The Panathenaic Stadium is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble, and a €12 ticket lets you run on its track. Athenians call it Kallimarmaro, "the beautiful marble". Five minutes' walk from the Zappeion, it appears suddenly: a white horseshoe pressed into the pine-covered hill of Ardittos.

The orator Lykourgos built the first stadium here around 330 BC for the Panathenaic Games, the festival of Athena. Spectators sat on the bare slope. Some 470 years later Herodes Atticus, the richest Athenian of the Roman age, rebuilt it in marble with room for 50,000. Then came the long silence. The marble was burned for lime and wheat grew on the track.

The stadium came back for the Zappas Olympics of 1870 and 1875, and fully in 1896, when the benefactor George Averoff paid to rebuild it in Pentelic marble, from the same mountain that gave Athens the Parthenon. On 6 April 1896 the first modern Olympic Games opened here. Days later a Greek water-carrier named Spyros Louis ran into this stadium to win the first marathon, and the crowd went wild.

It has never really stopped working. In 2004 it hosted Olympic archery and the marathon finish. Every November the Athens Marathon ends on this track, and before every Olympic Games the flame is handed over here to the host city.

Visiting the Panathenaic Stadium:

• Tickets: €12 general, €6 reduced, free for children under 6. Details on the official Panathenaic Stadium site
• Hours: 08:00–19:00 from March to October, 08:00–17:00 from November to February
• Included: audio guide in 11 languages, the vaulted passage the athletes used, and an exhibition of Olympic torches and posters from 1896 to today
• Do not miss: climb to the top row of the curve for a view that lines up the stadium, the National Garden and the Acropolis

Yes, you may run a lap and stand on the podium. Almost everybody does.

Temple of Olympian Zeus: the temple that took 638 years

The Temple of Olympian Zeus was the largest temple in Greece, and 15 of its 104 columns still stand. Each is 17.25 metres tall, about the height of a five-storey building. Stand beneath them and the Parthenon, floating on its rock behind you, suddenly looks modest.

No building in Athens had a longer birth. The sons of the tyrant Peisistratos began it around 520 BC, wanting a temple to outdo every other in the Greek world. Then the tyranny fell and the democracy that followed left the project to rot as a monument to arrogance. Kings and conquerors restarted it and gave up. It was the Roman emperor Hadrian, a man in love with Athens, who finished it in AD 131–132, some 638 years after the first stone.

Its glory was brief. Invasion, earthquakes and centuries of builders hunting for ready-cut marble reduced it to a handful of columns. A sixteenth lies where a storm threw it down in 1852, its drums spilled across the grass like a toppled stack of coins. It is the most photographed ruin on the site.

At the corner of the precinct stands Hadrian's Arch, free to see from the pavement. Its two faces carry two inscriptions. The side facing the Acropolis reads "This is Athens, the ancient city of Theseus". The other answers: "This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus". An emperor's signature, eighteen metres high.

Visiting the Temple of Olympian Zeus:

• Tickets: book ahead on the official Hellenic Heritage e-ticket site, tickets.hh.gr, where you will also find Acropolis tickets and current prices
• Hours: opens at 08:00; closing time changes with the season
• Time needed: 30 minutes
• On a budget: the columns are clearly visible through the railings on Vasilissis Olgas Avenue and from Hadrian's Arch

The route: four sights in one morning

The whole walk is about 3 kilometres on flat ground and takes three to four hours with stops. Start early; by noon in summer the stadium's marble throws the heat back at you.

1. Acropolis View Hotel to Hadrian's Arch (15 minutes). Walk down to Dionysiou Areopagitou, turn right and follow the pedestrian street past the Acropolis Museum to Amalias Avenue.
2. Temple of Olympian Zeus (30 minutes). Enter from Vasilissis Olgas Avenue, a few steps from the arch. Morning light falls on the columns from the east.
3. Zappeion (20 minutes). Cross Vasilissis Olgas and walk up through the Zappeion gardens to the portico. Coffee here if you need it.
4. Panathenaic Stadium (45–60 minutes). Follow the path east from the Zappeion to Vasileos Konstantinou Avenue. The stadium is across the road.
5. National Garden (45 minutes or more). Walk back past the Zappeion and enter the garden from its southern side. Wander north through the shade.
6. Finish at Syntagma Square. Leave by the Amalias gate. On the hour, the Evzones change guard in front of Parliament, two minutes away.

From Syntagma, it is a 20-minute walk back through Plaka, or one metro stop to Akropoli. Then take the lift to our rooftop. From there you can pick out the route you just walked, with the Parthenon in front of you.

Book your tickets in advance

Tickets for the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Acropolis and Greece's other archaeological sites and museums are sold on tickets.hh.gr, the official Hellenic Heritage platform of the Greek Ministry of Culture. Book before you set out and you walk straight to the gate. Book your tickets on tickets.hh.gr

Frequently asked questions

Is the National Garden in Athens free?

Yes. Entry to the National Garden is free and no booking is needed. It is open every day from sunrise to sunset.

Is the National Garden of Athens worth visiting?

Yes, especially in the warm months. It is 15.5 hectares of shade in the middle of the city, with a duck pond, Roman ruins and a café, five minutes from Syntagma Square.

Can you go inside the Zappeion?

Sometimes. The Zappeion is a working conference centre, so the interior is open only when events allow. The gardens and the exterior are always free to visit.

How much are Panathenaic Stadium tickets?

General admission is €12 and reduced admission is €6. Children under 6 enter free. The ticket includes an audio guide and the Olympic torch exhibition.

Is it worth going inside the Panathenaic Stadium?

Yes, if you want to walk the track, climb the stands and see the torch collection. If you only want a photograph, the open end of the stadium gives a full view from the street for free.

Can you run on the Panathenaic Stadium track?

Yes. Ticket holders can walk or run on the track and pose on the winners' podium.

Where can I buy tickets for the Temple of Olympian Zeus?

On tickets.hh.gr, the official e-ticket platform of the Greek Ministry of Culture, or at the gate on the day.

How many columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus are still standing?

Fifteen of the original 104 columns stand today. A sixteenth has lain on the ground since a storm in 1852.

Is the Temple of Olympian Zeus worth visiting?

Yes, for the scale: the columns are 17.25 metres tall and you can only feel that from beneath them. Travellers short on time or budget can see the temple well from Hadrian's Arch and the surrounding railings.

How long does it take to see all four sights?

Three to four hours on foot, including a coffee stop. They lie within about one kilometre of each other.

How far are they from the Acropolis?

Hadrian's Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus are about 10 minutes on foot from the Acropolis Museum. The stadium is another 10 to 15 minutes beyond.

Staying in Athens? Acropolis View Hotel is at 10 Webster Street in Koukaki, a 15-minute walk from the start of this route. Ask at reception for a map with the walk marked on it.