ATHENS, Ga. – With its relatively compact downtown, Athens is easily navigated on foot. So, last year, the Athens Welcome Center announced the addition of the new Downtown Athens Podtour.
This series of tours are the perfect starting off point to learn about The Classic City.
There are 10 stops on this self-guided tour, and the beauty of the tour is that there is no order, so travelers can take on Athens at their own pace and in their own order.
The stops on the tour include the Athens Welcome Center, Lyndon House Arts Center, Athena Statue, the Classic Center, City Hall + Double-Barreled Cannon, Morton Theatre, 40 Watt Club + Athens Music, College Square, UGA’s North Campus and the Oconee Rivers Greenway.
The podtours feature local musicians and local experts as narrators. The podtours are available for free on the Athens Welcome Center’s Web page.
In addition to the podtours, Classic City Tours offers a number of tours, including a guided historic tour of the Classic City. The tours are operated out of the Athens Welcome Center.
Unlike many other cities in Georgia, the so-called Classic City boasts a number of Antebellum houses that are open to the public. Among the houses worth visiting:
- The Taylor-Grady House, on Prince Avenue, an example of Greek Revival architecture, built circa 1844. Robert Taylor, a Brigadier General in the Georgia Militia, built the house as a summer retreat for his family.
- The Ware-Lyndon House, an Italianate-designed house built in 1856 by the first mayor, served as the city’s first recreation center. Dr. Edward R. Ware, the first mayor of Athens, built the house, which is the only house that remains from the city’s once-prominent Lickskillet neighborhood. A secret passage under the house is rumored to exist.
- The Wray-Nicholson House on Hull Street, built circa 1825. Since September 2000, the house has been home to the UGA Alumni Association.
- The T.R.R. Cobb house, built in the 1830s, reopened to the public in August 2007. The house was moved to Stone Mountain in 1985 and returned in 2004. Today, it sits about two blocks from where it was originally built.
Following any tour, Athens’ Victorian-era downtown offers a number of local shops and eateries.