Acropolis, Athens, Greece, 2000

Built as the hilltop home of Athens's patron goddess, Athena, the Acropolis—and its most famous structure, the Parthenon, at right—recall the classical area of the ancient city-state that witnessed a brilliant flowering of art, architecture, philosophy, and democracy in the fifth century B.C. Today, government, tourism, and shipping dominate the economy in Greece's modern-day capital.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Alexander the Conqueror," March 2000, National Geographic magazine)