ancient greece

The history of Athens and its many monuments is endlessly exciting for visitors and you don't need to be in the city itself to get a taste of its glorious past. Wander around London, admire a few buildings, have a short visit to the British Museum and then finish your day with a trip to the cinema and you will feel like you've been to transported to ancient Greece. So here are 10 points of call for experiencing your very own "Athens day" in London.

There are some excellent ancient history titles on the market this year, and you can get your hands on some of them for free by entering Heritage Key's Ancient World in London bloggers' challenge. It's part of our three-month-long celebration of Ancient London, an interactive online and offline event featuring HD video, virtual worlds, competitions and live events.

Thames & Hudson has up for grabs five books from its latest catalogue for whoever can best answer our first bloggers' challenge question: 'Which invaders have had the biggest impact on London?' The winner will also receive 50 bonus HK points to boost their online tally.

Thames & Hudson is one of the biggest names in publishing, with history among its specialist subjects. Its mission includes the challenge to "create a museum without walls" and to make academic research available to the mass market at affordable prices. 

The life of Heinrich Schliemann is as legendary as the city he claimed to have discovered. A quintessential 19^th century adventurer and amateur archaeologist, his obsession for Troy took him around the world and to Turkey and Greece. Fascinated by Homer’s epic narration, Schliemann stopped at nothing to discover the historical sites named by the poet. The veracity of his findings is however often questioned. Heinrich Schliemann: fanatic obsessed by his boyhood dreams or successful antiquarian?

A Boyhood Dream

Born in 1822 to a poor Protestant minister father and an unpublished literary critic mother who died when he was nine, Schliemann had a rag to riches life. Like many children of his time, he had to leave school at 14 to take up a job, selling herring and candles.

The publishing industry – like every sector in this recession-hit climate  – is feeling the pinch. Two publishers known for their history titles went bust last year, though one (White Star) is being rejuvenated under new ownership. Cuts to university research budgets are likely to result in fewer tomes being commissioned by academic presses, but the resulting fall in book numbers will take a while to filter through to the market. The big publishers will keep publishing – albeit more selectively – but it's the smaller publishers (many of whom are responsible for some of the more original and imaginative works) that are at risk of not just cutting their budgets, but of going to the wall altogether.