What I can see

Lycabettus hill is 277 metres high, offering a unique view of the largest part of the city. The ancients considered it as an ideal hill for meteorological observation. Its name is pre-Hellenic and therefore it is not possible to know precisely what it means. The speculations that the name “Lycabettus” comes from the existence of wolves (Lykos means wolf in Greek) in antiquity have no scientific basis. Access to higher parts of the hill is possible either through the large network of paths or by cable car from the end of Ploutarchou Street. On the top of the hill, stands the chapel of St. George and a little lower to the southwest, the church of Sts Isidores. A theatre and a cafeteria operate on the hill. Lycabettus is a calcareous rock, mainly covered with pine trees, even though several other tree species can be found here (e.g. cypresses, olive trees, eucalyptus) as well as shrubs. A total of 11 bird species, as well as small predators, foxes and bats live on the hill. 

What I can't see

There are two legends about how the hill was formed. The first one states that Athena was carrying a rock on her way back from Pallini, in order to fortify the Acropolis, when she learned about the birth of Kekrops’ grandson and was so upset that she dropped the rock. According the second legend, she carried the rock from Mount Penteli to place it on the Acropolis in order to make it higher, when she learned that the daughters of Kekrops had opened the box she had entrusted to them and was so upset that, the story goes again, she dropped it. Many streams flow from Lycabettus, which now run underneath the city’s streets. Ever since the interwar period, it has been a symbol of purification from the pollution of the city. During the reign of Otto, people would sometimes light up 100 lamps here, which formed his initial O. The architect Ziller had big plans for the hill, which were never implemented.

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