No matter how many photos you’ve seen, the first glimpse of the Parthenon up on its rock is mesmerising. It oversees the sprawling scrum that is contemporary Athens with utter disdain. There is something of the eternal about it.

This is not simply another tourist-attraction ruin. Nor are the city’s other classical remains. They are our roots — the sites where history gave trial runs to democracy and a form of humanism. It happened right here: on the Acropolis, in the Agora or up on Pnika hill. It is breathtaking, and realised in breathtaking form.

Democracy didn’t evolve in a vacuum. In the 5th century BC, Athens was not only Greece’s leading city-state but also host to the greatest burst of creativity the world had seen, or would see, for a very long time.

Socrates was philosophising (and getting executed for his trouble); Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides were refining theatrical tragedy; Herodotus inventing history writing; and Phidias moving sculpture along. Meanwhile, Pericles, the greatest Athenian leader, was giving the vote to the landless.

Here, then, was a civilisation at the top of its form: the Parthenon and other temples on the Acropolis were its sublime physical expression. So forget the endless scruffiness of modern Athens. Forget the hectic scramble it took to get the Olympics ready in time. Forget, in fact, the Olympics. What you are really going to Athens to see is the ancient articulation of values we still reckon civilised.

FIRST EVENING

You won’t be able to resist it. The floodlit Parthenon will draw you to the base of the Acropolis, from where you will stare up, awestruck. It really does look to be placed between earth and heaven. Celebrate this first glimpse with a drink in the Plaka district, the oldest bit of non-classical Athens. In the lee of the Acropolis, it is your first indication that contemporary Athens is not charm-free.

DAY ONE: morning

Early breakfast and out, for the 8.30am opening of the Acropolis. Any later, and you’ll end up frying in the midday heat. Avoid the main entrance and head instead for the southern side entry which, though nearer the city centre, is less popular.

It also has the advantage of taking you up the southern slope of the Acropolis, which main-entrance visitors often bypass — a pity, because this slope, under the looming Parthenon, was a key Athenian quarter, alive with arty and intellectual types.

So pay up, then climb up through the wooded parkland, first to the Theatre of Dionysus. The oldest in Greece, it had stone seating for 17,000, backing right up the hill, and a three-storey stage backdrop with pillars and balconies. There is not a vast amount left, but you may roam over what there is. All the great tragedians played works here. Close your eyes to hear Sophocles or Euripides.

FURTHER UP, you join the Peripatos, the main street which encircled the Acropolis. It takes you by the Asklepeion, a temple-cum-clinic dedicated to the god of medicine, and along the top of the Stoa of Eumenes colonnade, created as a walkway for theatregoers.

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