If you continue down Athinas street from the Central Market , you will come to Omonia square, Athens oldest. It's worth a trip, just as you can't go to New York without taking a peak at 42nd street.
If you are from New York it will remind you more of 14th street. Omonia is pretty tame these days but for awhile it was a place to avoid. It's surrounded with fast-food stores and the enormous famous old cafeneon has been turned into a Cafe-Neon, sort of a cafeteria where you can get just about anything.
The food is not bad and some old guys still hang out there. The pedestrian streets on the other side of the square are interesting in a third-world kind of way.
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There are several major hotels that have been bought up by big hotel companies and renovated and the whole area is undergoing renewal. Beneath the square is the metro.
There is a health food store on Panepistimiou-Venizelos Street just off the square. Directly opposite Agios Konstantinou Street passes the National Theater and ends at Kariaskakis and Metaxourgiou Square.
If you continue down Theodorou Diligiani Street you will come to the Larissis Station where you get the trains to northern Greece or the buses to Albania.
Its not the best area though there are a number of nice hotels that do much of their business with foreign travel agents and automated-booking sites from people who can't resist the low prices. So lets head back to Omonia.
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When Athens embraced the automobile, Omonia was one of the major casualties and the square became less people friendly and eventually it was not even automobile friendly as cars converged on it from all directions.
The beauty of the square started to fade and until recently was a total disaster. When the building of a parking lot started they discovered antiquities. Now it has been covered up and is one of the most beautiful squares in Greece, surrounded by some beautiful neo-classic buildings from the turn of the century.
