For travellers who want the city's contemporary, countercultural pulse rather than its ruins, Exarcheia is electric: layered murals, radical bookshops, cheap student bars and the most honest 'living Athens' energy anywhere. The catch: it has a real edge — protest clashes, drug activity around parts of the square, and a recent contested metro/gentrification flashpoint — so it's not for the nervous or for late-night first-timers.