Athens gets a bad rap in the guidebooks, ‘famous for its sprawl, noise, pollution’, ‘smeared with grime’ and ‘layer of nefos (smog) overhead’. Well we experienced none of this (and for the record haven't seen the supposedly notorious London fog yet either) and with such low expectations, thought the city delightful. It must be admitted however that our visit was more of the tour-bus variety in that we were only there for 24 hours, confined ourselves to the 19th century ‘old town’, hit all main sites, then got out quick.
Though the Athens 2004 Olympics games were poorly attended (evidenced by the fact that many of the shops are still trying to flog Olympics-related merchandise, which I found sadly optimistic – if people didn’t buy it in the heat of Olympics fever do you really think you’ve got a chance of getting rid of it two years after the event? That’s why I could never own a shop, I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting to buy about 99.5% of things that are on sale anywhere… but I digress) and the people of Greece will be paying the debt for many years to come, a big benefit is that the city got a big spruce up and now features a clean, modern transport system, pedestrian-only streets and a wealth of outdoor cafes, restaurants and bars (all very much buzzing well into the Sunday night we were there). Athens is a surprisingly leafy (though not necessarily green) city, and this combined with very hot weather, gave an excellent summer holiday-ey feel to the start of our summer holiday.
First stop was the Acropolis (which means the edge of a town or a high city and because you can see it from all around is very handy for getting your bearings). The main temples here (the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and the Temple of Nike) were erected during about 450-330 B.C. which is well, a very long time ago indeed. I tried to imagine a group of men lazing around philosophising in long white robes (while their wives were at home doing all the work) and the atmosphere was certainly conducive to reflection and inspiration.
Day two saw us take in the temple of Olympian Zeus, the Ancient Agora and a guard with pom-poms on his shoes. Then it was down to the port at Pireaus and onto the ferry for our first island stop…. to be continued.
