Touring modern Athens in the shadow of Socrates

Press, 29 June 1988, Page 27 (Supplement)

Touring modern Athens in the shadow of Socrates

Ancient Greece rests easily in modern Athens. The Acropolis, one of the world’s treasured hills, is the first of many memorable sights on the drive into Athens from the international airport on the Attica coast at Kalamaki.

Closer to the city, the Parthenon stands starkly against the sky, snubbed by the bustle of traffic constantly surging along the busy commercial streets past the massive Hadrian’s Arch and grassy hollow where the temple of the Olympian Zeus once stood. Athenians today shop next to the Roman forum and stroll in the gardens surrounding the ancient stadium. They worship in Byzantine churches containing priceless antiquities. And young couples find a place to be alone in the shadow of Socrates’ prison cell. They might seem to ignore it all, but Athenians in fact are proud of their heritage and civilisation. Most visitors, unfortunately, fail to make the connection between the Athens of blaring traffic, international hotels, souvenir shops and coach tours, and the continuity and ebullience of Athenian life.

They are sheltered from reality, and from Greeks, by going in groups to the Acropolis, perhaps for the nightly sound-and-light show, and to the magnificent Museum of Archeology. They shop around Syntagma (Constitution) Square with fellow visitors. They eat in hotels and tourist tavernas, missing most of the life force so abundant on the waterfront at Piraeus, in the barbecue restaurants of Kalamaki, and the little tavernas of Patission and Monastiraki.

As in most historically rich cities, visitors to Athens should allow a couple of days to become acclimatised, uncovering at leisure the main places of interest and setting aside time for revisiting. Athens is a great place in which to wander. From the centre around Syntagma, streets in any direction blend the ancient and modern, in a heady mixture peculiar to the city.

Greece has a deserved reputation for being a bargain shopping place, but Kolanaki is not cheap. It offers excellent merchandise at value, not bargain, prices.

For the footsore, Kolanaki also is a favourite place to rest under an awning for coffee or a beer, a Greek pastry with the aroma of honey, or an ice cream concoction. And, of course, to watch and comment upon the passing parade of fashion. Bargain hunters head in the opposite direction, down towards the Acropolis in the Plaka and Monastiraki; again no more than a 10 minute stroll from the main square. The Plaka, an old quarter, had become run down, and the wrong sort of bars and merchants were moving in. Now there is a major effort to clean up and renovate one of Athens’ major attractions. Streets are being recobbled; handsome old houses repainted and restored. The side-walk cafes en-

couraged to serve traditional foods at reasonable prices under another growth of shady grapevines.

The Plaka is fun in daytime, and safe at night. Between the old cruciform,

domed churches, restaurants, and night-clubs, tavernas and shops now cater for all tourists, including the budget conscious, with a mixed bag of attractions for the stomach, mind, and soul. Just beyond, Monastiraki is an even closer jumble of shops. Antiques (but not antiquities, which cannot be exported) and sandalmakers jostle with coppersmiths and village weavers. The mobile vendors of roasted corn on the cob, chestnuts, big circular pretzels, and ice-creams dodge the pedestrians fingering pop-music cassettes and copies of Orthodox altar decorations. This is taverna and ouzeria country. If the Greeks are not sitting over coffee discussing something seriously they are in the huge national gardens, under the shade, discussing something with theatrical gestures and great shows of emotion.