Athens

Until recently, my experience of Greece has been limited to the beautiful island of Rhodes, which I loved so much, I went back again for a second time (very rare for me). I'd never visited the Greek mainland, and had always wanted to see the ancient ruins of the Parthenon, so we took a short trip to Greece's capital city Athens to scratch that itch.

The first thing that struck me about Athens is how enormous it is. It doesn't feel very big at first, when you're in the thick of it, but catching the funicular to the top of Mount Lycabettus will treat you to incredible views across a vast terracotta ocean, as far as the eye can see.

That said, everything we wanted to see was within a fairly tight radius around the ancient centre, so we didn't have to travel very far. The Parthenon was at the top of our wishlist, along with the Odeon of Herodes Atticus; an impressive amphitheatre dating back some 2,500 years.

There's so much to see here, you could easily spend a couple of weeks or more exploring the ancient ruins.

These photographs were taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark IV and the extraordinary Canon 35 mm f/1.4 L II USM .