It is impossible not to be charmed by Athens. At night, bouzouki music wells up from dark basements; tables spill out of ouzeris, around which friends and strangers quarrel about politics. The air is filled with the perfume of wild basil, bitter orange, jasmine. Vociferous graffiti on crumbling walls cohabits with freshly painted Minoan ochres on neoclassical buildings. Visitors are welcomed with a hearty ‘Yeia-sou!’
Strangers to the city should start with the classics: if Athens is anything, it is the Parthenon, built on the rock of the Acropolis, the location of the first settlement of Athens in 3000 BC. The Parthenon was built during the ‘golden age’ of Pericles, in the 5th century BC. It dominates not only the city, but the Greek imagination.
I encourage visitors who are arriving from the airport to take the ultra-modern metro to the Acropolis station. Immediately outside the station is a tree-lined pedestrian street. I steer guests past tavernas offering vine-leaves stuffed with rice, crispy calamari, smooth and sweet fava, kalamata olives, horiatiki (Greek salad), and spicy loukanika (village sausage), in order to enter the Acropolis Museum. As with many public spaces in Athens, the entrance has a plexiglass floor through which the ruins of ancient Athenian neighbourhoods can be viewed. The museum is a modernist temple in concrete, steel, and glass to the ancient Greek world and, since its opening in 2012, has become rightly acknowledged as one of the great museums in the world. The lights are on until late and, through them, you can see the relief sculptures of the Parthenon frieze. They show the Panathenaic Procession, celebrating the occasion of Athena’s birthday. Less than half of the 160-metre frieze includes the original golden-marble reliefs; more than half are white plaster replicas, a reminder of Lord Elgin’s perfidy in 1801.
Outside the museum is the Dionysiou Areopagitou promenade, which skirts around the Acropolis hill. This is the route to the Parthenon, the Theatre of Herod Atticus, the Theatre of Dionysius, and the rock of Areopagos (where Saint Paul preached in AD51). It also leads to Filopappou Hill, whose quiet Byzantine chapel is worth a visit, and the famous yet timeworn outdoor cinema, the Thission. Along with the cinematique that holds the Greek Film Archive (at the intersection of Lera and Megalou Alexandrou Steet), this cinema regularly premiers international films and champions daring Greek directors, such as Yorgos Lanthimos of the ‘Greek Weird Wave’.
At the end of St Paul Street, the continuation of Areopagitou, visitors have a choice. Sometimes, I turn right, leading my guests into a maze of alleys packed with flea-market and antique stalls. Other times, we veer left into the sprawling food market near Omonia Square, home to Greek’s unique rembetika music, invented in the Ottoman era by paupers in prisons, hashish dens, and whore houses.
From there, it is only a short walk to bohemian Exarcheia, the heart of radical Athens and anarchism. This is an edgy, inner-city neighbourhood, teeming with cheap tavernas, used vinyl stores, and ultra-cool music clubs. Politics is imprinted on every pavement. Nearby is the Athens’ Polytechnic, the site of the bloody student uprising of November 1973, which led to the end of the dictatorship that had imprisoned, tortured, and exiled so many Greeks. On the corner of Mesolongiou and Tzabella, there is a memorial to 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos who was shot by police in December 2008. His murder (and the subsequent riots) continues to resonate amongst young people today, desperately hurt by unemployment and austerity.
Finally, I take visitors up Ermou street (the Greek ‘Oxford Street’), past the 11th-century Church of Panagia Kapnikarea, to Syntagma Square, which is the ‘beating heart’ of the city. This square is surrounded by museums – the best of which is Benaki at Koumpari – and is immediately in front of the Greek Parliament. Since May 2011, this square has been the symbol of the Greek people’s resistance to austerity. Some days, these peaceful protests attracted up to 200,000 people. They led to the electoral triumph of the Syriza government in January 2015. Today, the square continues to be a reminder that Athens remains a bustling, enchanting cosmopolitan city.
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