Athens has never been shy about reinvention – or about putting that reinvention on public view. Since 1 May, the fourth annual This Is Athens City Festival has been scattering twilight concerts, curb-side film screenings, pop-up dance floors, and big-think salons across every compass point of the capital. The result is a month-long mixtape of art, ideas, and unfiltered joie de vivre that seeps into parks, markets, rooftops, and waterfronts from dawn till well past midnight.

Festival Director Nikos Barlas describes this year’s edition as “as richly layered as the city itself, a kind of cultural palimpsest where antiquity and avant-garde overlap at every turn.” Below, he unpacks that vision – while we flag 20 essential happenings drawn from the 200-strong roster, giving you a fast-track pass to the festival’s irresistible core and the many stories Athens is ready to tell.

Read more at Travel.gr/en