The subtitle of this newsletter—in English, "The Thing About Athens"—illustrates the first stumbling block you encounter when visiting Greece. Unless you're an old-fashioned Oxford scholar, chances are you know at most one or two characters from the (classical) Greek alphabet. When subway platforms go rushing by on the way into town from the airport, it's understandable if you feel a slight panic coming on. But give yourself a little time, and you soon start to recognize signs like Σύνταγμα [Syntagma, a key Metro station], even if you have no idea what they mean.
And much to our surprise, the title here is an approximate quote from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act I, Scene ii). The Roman Senator Casca responds to a Seneca speech (in Greek, of course) with befuddlement and hands British schoolchildren an all-time favorite descriptor for the inexplicable chaos of life.
When you walk up the steps to the Parthenon, you have to hope the air is dry and the morning dew has evaporated. If not, the marble slabs make for very slick footing. And as you timidly concentrate on those slippery shoes, you begin to realize that you’re stepping not on a planned pedestrian surface per se, but on a pavement made up of random fragments of demolished temples and mansions as old as history itself. For all you know, you’re peering down at scuff marks left by Socrates on the way to his infamous trial.
Check any timeline of Greek History, and you’ll turn several pages before another western country even emerges from its cave. The Greeks started working on the socio-political thing—and then writing about it—more than 7,000 years ago. That progress constitutes a breathtaking record of achievement in every field of human knowledge and experience. Science, mathematics, philosophy, drama, oratory, law, history, religion, even the archaeology and anthropology we use to study ancient Greece. Every field of western learning finds its origins in the Hellenic mists.
But look at Greek history another way, and from its very origins, you find an appalling litany of civil war, assassination, betrayal, and corruption, with vicious competition at every developmental stage of those legendary city states. Homer’s Iliad starts out with a King arbitrarily abducting and presumably violating his greatest warrior’s wife. Hundreds of nasty conflicts later, in the Greek Civil War of 1947, all sides—and there were many—mass-kidnapped children after summarily executing their parents in one of the worst internal bloodlettings of the Cold War. Greeks are some of the warmest, friendliest souls on earth, but when they disagree, it’s time to scatter.
Not that foreigners have helped to calm the waters. From Persians, Turks, and Egyptians to Albanians and Serbs, to Germans, Brits, and Americans, outsiders have fought for possession and influence here. You quickly spot the foreign artifacts—and bullet holes—in many of the storied neighborhoods of Athens, but with one difference: You never get the sense that the Greeks have diluted, much less abandoned, their culture. Greece is still—and will probably always be—emphatically Greek.
In modern times, all those belligerent foreigners and all the native fragments and factions have been sucked into a thick, unruly stew that never quite gels and never quite falls apart. German bankers, EU administrators, and would-be Greek Colonels might despise the mess, but they tend to be ignored where it counts, on the ground. Athens seethes with all the noise and chaos of a third-world metropolis, but with few of the religious and social hazards that might fluster you elsewhere. Of course it’s a first world city, you remind yourself—it’s the freaking Cradle of Civilization!
The key to visiting this massive, complex stew lies in navigating your way into Central Athens and its classic neighborhoods. The municipal buses and the Metro connect those communities in an intricate, but easily understood web. Fortunately, if you use Google Maps, the place names are (sometimes) shown in both their Anglo and Greek alphabets. So don your slip-proof shoes or sandals and prepare for too much climbing in this surprisingly hilly terrain.
The Athenian neighborhoods do not reflect official divisions and vary all over the map in size and definition. Syntagma, for example, is really just the (admittedly huge) Square. Several neighborhoods consist of a Metro stop and a few surrounding blocks. With that in mind, our favorite areas—or at least the areas where we spend the most time—include:
Akropoli [Ἀκρόπολις]
By an ancient law, no building in Athens is allowed to impede your view of the Acropolis. The sacred limestone hilltop and its legendary temples hover over the city and provide an excellent navigational reference point for hikers. "Hiking" being the operative word for the climb to the top. Fortunately, there are plenty of places to stop along the way and marvel at the march—or slog—or dance—of human history.
Syntagma [Σύνταγμα]
The political heart of the city, and the square where the bullets first fly in any serious conflict. You won’t see any bullets these days, but demonstrations do erupt on a regular basis. You can tell what’s coming by the blue police buses that immediately surround the square with their intimidating, riot-geared phalanxes. Nevertheless, if you’re in Grand Hotel mode (after a hard trek through the islands?), this square has two of our favorites (The Grand Bretagne and The King George). And you can take the Metro and buses anywhere from here.
Plaka [Πλάκα]
The cultural heart of Athens and its oldest neighborhood, jam-packed with tourists, vendors, buskers, and beggars—in season at least. The harder you work here, the better your experience will be. In amongst all the flimflam are hidden a handful of sensational boutique hotels and superb, tiny restaurants. Great people-watching cafes are scattered about, but save your tawdry-trinket cash for the Monastiraki flea market at the foot of Ermou [Ερμού] Street.
Monastiraki [Μοναστηράκι]
A key Metro intersection and the huge outdoor market. A handful of nice cafes. In general, a noisy, degenerate mess, but still interesting. You might characterize it as a low-rent Plaka.
Psyrri [Ψυρρή]
Adjacent to Plaka and Monastiraki, this is where the food starts to get interesting. Our standard meal, by which we judge all Greek restaurants, is a bowl of Tzatziki (Greek yogurt, herbs and spices, too much garlic, preferably hand-mixed at your table) followed by a whole, unadorned fish (eyes, fins, and all) broiled in salt, pepper, and olive oil. If the chef gets these right, we’ll think about ordering (and spelling!) the Souvlaki, Keftedes, Moussaka, and Spanakopita.
Kolonaki [Κολωνάκι]
An upscale community with hundreds of boutiques and great restaurants. Major hill action, but that’s what the buses are for. The fascinating thing about this area is that, in any other city, these quiet squares and winding back streets would qualify as picturesque and antique. In Athens, they feel positively arriviste.
Thiseio [Θησείο]
Possibly the most placid and beautiful section of Athens, with several long walk streets connecting all of the monuments and ruins. As elsewhere in the city, the Rambling Rule of Slopes is: What walks down, must walk up.
A note on seasons:
Athens gets hot, really hot. If you combine a trip to the city with a jaunt around the islands, we suggest you get it in before Easter or after September. Otherwise, all the wandering we feature here gets seriously problematical (not to mention that the island experience becomes one long, dull, overpriced crush of tourist bodies). We normally shoot for March, when the days are bearable, the nights are breezy, the hotels are cheap, and the Athenians have nothing better to do than talk to strangers like us.
And then there was “Z” (1969)
We bring up our favorite almost-Greek movie here if only because it explains why we were so late (in life) getting to Athens—not until 2006, in fact. The action takes place in a northern city (Thessaloniki?) and, other than the director (Costa Gavras), the leading lady (Irene Papas), and the score (Mikis Theodorakis), the production is entirely French. Yves Montand plays the Greek Senator Grigoris Lambrakis, whose blatant murder precipitated the crisis of 1967. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays the prosecutor Christos Sartzetakis, who pursued the corrupt Greek Colonels, until they staged the coup d’état that plunged Greece and Athens into years of dark isolation.
Our Ben was living in Italy at the time and immediately joined the Greek Boycott that included most of the civilized world (outside of the Nixon Administration which needed all the friends it could find in the late Vietnam War). The film is pure propaganda, of course, and quite possibly the finest propaganda film ever made. But today, like the events themselves, it plays like another one of those murky, oddly relevant Greek legends from a long vanished past.
In the mid-90's, our local PBS pledge drives featured an elaborately-staged production by the New Age musician, Yanni. The music was a little bland, but the production title, Yanni - Live at the Acropolis, was like a lightning bolt to my imagination, and it took little time before we referred to it as Yawning - Live at the Acropolis. Time went on and the production lost allure, however, and we might have forgotten about it if it hadn't been for our dear friends, Pat and Johnny, who took a Mediterranean cruise to catch a solar eclipse. When they asked if we wanted anything from the exotic east, I didn't hesitate. "Yeah, I want a photo of you two. Yawning. Live at the Acropolis." Explanations followed along with some mild exclamations of mirth, and they assured us they would, memory keeping its charge. Unfortunately, they overlooked it when they walked in the footsteps of Socrates and Aristotle and brought no such image home. So... Next time you're in the region and you just happen to remember, we'll both be eternally grateful. If not, it is of no moment. Best wishes to you both and all the family!