The best bakery in the city - start with the bougatsa. Flaky, warm, dusted with icing sugar, the kind of pastry that makes you want to sit down even if you were planning to eat it on the go. The kind of place you come in for one thing and leave with five, slightly dazed, wondering how that happened. Everything looks too good to leave behind.

Greek coffee or mountain tea in the sun. Bring a book, or don't - just sit. The kind of place that has no interest in rushing you, and you'll feel it the moment you arrive. Time moves differently here. Order something, find a spot in the light, and let the morning go wherever it wants.

My neighbourhood restaurant. The kind of food that tastes like someone's grandmother made it.

Django for gelato. The owner spent years perfecting a completely natural recipe, and you can taste exactly that in every scoop, nothing artificial, nothing shortcuts. Watch him work through the glass while you wait, which somehow makes it taste even better. Right now the orange trees are out, and the colour against the white walls is something else entirely. The kind of scene you want to hold onto.

The kind of place you go in looking for one thing and come out with a bag full of reasons. You'll find Mediterranea here, recipes from the grandmothers of the Mediterranean, Yiayia included. The food that doesn't get written down often enough, finally written down. Worth the visit for the bookshop alone. The book is just a very good reason to stay longer.

Slightly off the beaten track and completely underrated, which is half the reason to go. Fassianos's figures are unlike anything else: lovers, cyclists, birds, gods, all rendered in that unmistakable palette, somewhere between ancient fresco and modern dream. The kind of work that gets under your skin. Once you discover it, you won't stop thinking about it.

Kypseli. Just walk. The wrought iron doors, the neoclassical facades, the colours peeling back through layers of the last hundred years. Every street has something worth stopping for, a doorway, a balcony, a courtyard glimpsed through a gate. Athens is a city that rewards the curious, and Kypseli is proof of that. No particular destination needed. Just go.