Gold for Greece

Irish Independent, August 11th, 2012

As London 2012 reaches its curtain call this weekend, Athens retains its perennial cachet as the true homeland of The Olympic Games. Although smothered with smog, sweltering summers and strikes, the Greek capital may be a notorious din of chaos (just ask a local) but I discovered that, after a slow start of the blocks, the cradle of sport delivers a weekend-getaway buzz of epic proportions.

Aboard a heaving night ferry from Santorini, my friend Amber and I arrived in the Athenian port of Piraeus amid a yellow swarm of frenzied taxi drivers. A €10 bargain transfer fare later and we’re darting through the electric streets of Europe’s most ancient city with our first peep of an illuminated Acropolis in check. After a midnight check-in at Fresh: our boutique hotel in the business district of Omonia, we decide to stretch our sea legs with a late night stroll downtown. However, after mazes of dingy streets, occupied by surly gyros merchants, pimps and stray dogs, we were soon back at our pad, ruing whether Athens was indeed the depot of hostility we’d feared.

The next morning, we decided to trade in our swanky pad for a no-frills self-catering apartment in the sleepy neighbourhood of Acropolis. Our humble flat, overlooking a quiet avenue lined with orange trees, bantering old ladies and zipping Vespas was just the tranche of Athenian life we’d wanted. After all, you can’t really say you’ve done Greece until you’ve shopped for aubergines and haloumi in the local markets. (Or the EuroSpar across the road.)

The Acropolis, the Athenian crowning glory, was our first visit (€12). Once the sacred abode of mythical kings, the perpetually scaffolded temple, was dotted with tourists, German archaeologists and dozens of art-students, charcoaling its majesty. Rising above the midday glare of Athens’ sable sprawl, the site was indeed magnificent, and as we would later discover, even more so when admired from the pine-covered slopes of nearby Filopappos hill.

An afternoon of neighbourhood-hopping followed, taking us past the kooky boutiques of trendy Kolonaki, the flea markets of Monastiraki’s and the astounding National Archaeological Museum (€7). At Syntagma Square, site of the Greek Parliament and one of the city’s main metro hubs, a lone austerity protester orated to a non-plussed shuffle of commuters.

It was perhaps a benign snapshot into Greece’s economic woes, but after two years of sporadic violent protests, visitor numbers to Athens are crumbling even quicker than the country’s credit rating. The capital is suffering a 40% tourism drop to last year – proving something of a death-knell to a land where tourism has long been considered the golden goose. However, aside from encountering some anarchic graffiti and bypassing the occasional demo, we encountered an Athens with a resounding aura of laissez-fair calm.

We ended up back in the ancient district (and now car-free) Plaka amid the tourist-trapped terraces of the Acropolis, I discovered the hole-in-the-wall taverna of Paradosiako. My menu of baked chickpeas, lamb kleftiko, along with a glass of wine to do Bacchus proud provided a wonderful introduction into the art of the languorous two hour lunch break. (When in Athens afterall…)

By our second night in Athens, we’d become locals – rustling up Mediterranean suppers, while sitting down to Saturday night’s finale of Greek Idol. But our night didn’t crescendo watching Dimitros from Crete getting sensationally bumped into the bottom two. After grabbing the subway at Acropolis (which itself features an impressive display ancient frescoes) we were soon sashaying around the city’s heaving night life hotspot of Gazi. Surrounded by handsome bearded men and leggy goddesses. The genetics of Greek deities have clearly filtered through the millennia.

The next morning visited Panathinaiko stadium – the genesis of the modern Olympics (€3). The lone visitor, I sauntered off on my self-guided tour which, from the stadium tunnel to the mighty marbled arena, all echoed with the pursuit of sporting kudos. Back in the arena, the ceremony rostrum caught my eye, and seen as nobody was looking, it was hard to resist my medal moment. Mounting the steps of one of the world’s most iconic sites, I’d won my place on the Athens podium. And indeed, Athens had won a place on mine.

Getting there: Aer Lingus (0818 365 000; aerlingus.com) flies from Dublin to Athens from €130 return
Staying there: A little piece of home in your own Greek apartment comes with crisis prices rates from €25pps (athensstudtios.gr; +30 210 9235811).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *