Athenia

Ah, Athens! The cradle of western thought! The very birthplace of theatre and its Dionysian revels! A sort of too-hot under-vegetated rocky mass surrounded by dense clusters of touristic activity! O how mixed my feelings were on this spot, and o what a contrast it was to the idyll and joy of Lesvos! After the jump: my bad attitude and also some extremely lovely corners amidst the general "weh!"

 So context for all of this is, or should be, that I crashed kinda hard in Athens. I picked up a stomach bug (likely on my last meal in Lesvos, a less-than-advisable taverna lunch while waiting for my ferry to board) that was mild but unpleasant, and I was... shall we say unprepared for the slam of unsheltered heat, heat being a very prominent theme of this trip so far. Anecdotes are not data, but I do have to say that the "hm, 100 degrees Fahrenheit the first week in June seems... bad" reality of this summer stands in stark contrast to my previous sprints across Europe just a few years back. Maybe we could take advantage of the gas crisis to accelerate a green energy transition that would be a universal good in addition to mitigating climate change? No? We're gonna go beg the Saudis for cheap gas because our politics is awful? Okay! Just a thought!

When life gives you too much sun and heat, make somebody make you a freddo espresso! Scrom nom nom.

 Anyhow, Athens is not especially built for mending time, in large part because its geography is Hard! Scrabble! It's a rocky place, it is, even once you get past the Acropolis (the top of the Acropolis being where the Parthenon is, as Fry fans will know), with some parks but mostly not an awful lot of greenery. And unlike Rome, which I love, its antiquities do not quite feel woven in with a full city living its life in the moment, but feel a bit.... set-off, anchored in a touristic zone. I got a few tastes of the city beyond this core, but it was a bit challenging to be sure.

I think that's largely a historical quirk, to be clear - Rome had multiple rises-and-falls, but for the most part has been a growing city through much of the modern era (in historical terms) and thus has, nefarious AirBnB real estate price gouging excepted, largely retained a lot of "people live and work here and the city is set up for that" energy. Athens, on the other hand, got a hard-reboot in the mid-nineteenth century when the Great Powers, in one of their brilliant and not-at-all-insane moves to counter the Ottoman Empire, decided YEAH GREECE IS A COUNTRY NOW, AND ITS CAPITAL IS UHHH [consults book of antiquities and drinks a solid handle of romantic addiction to ruins] ATHENS, ATHENS IS THE NEW CAPITAL NO I DO NOT CARE THAT NAFPLION IS THE ACTUAL CENTER OF COMMERCE RIGHT NOW, ALSO YOUR KING IS A GERMAN GUY NAMED OTTO, HAVE FUN.

lookit this lil doofy guy. this church is covered in these lil doofy guys. aww guy

Anyway, it's not the most harmful thing European empires did (hot take), but I do think that unilaterally declaring by-then-a-semi-backwater Athens to be Greece's capital, they created an artificial boom that coincided with the Romantic obsession with archaeology and ruins to somewhat freeze the Acropolis area in its tracks while surrounding it with sprawl, and so you have this odd not-quite-organic city. Would I have loved it if I were there in March or November? Possibly! I tend to be happier out of the brutal summer sun, and cities are at their best when not gritting their teeth for millions of tourists like me (a big dummy). But finding myself in Sicily as I write this, with ample gardens and parks and tucked-away trees cooling the air, I find that I'm becoming a militant "TREES NOT STREETS" dude, which I think would be my take on Athens year-round.

Credit where due: SOME places (The Black Duck among them) have little garden courtyards and it turns out you will spend your life searching wildly for them, they are havens, never walk away from gratitude

I should again say, there were some fantastic corners. I took a food tour of Athens on my first morning with Culinary Backstreets, and while their Lisbon tour remains the apex of the art form, using food to tell a story of history, imperialism, culture, and counterculture, this was a great way to crack past some of the edifice and find places that are here for folk who live here: dairy bars from the 50s, Cretan donut shops, a little mezze bar in the fish market that mostly serves fishmongers and fishermen, etc. That guide was also great (as most CB guides are) at getting deep conversationally, talking through how America's politics affect Greece historically (hellooooooo military junta!) and now (helloooooo brinksmanship with NATO under a recent president!) or how student politics in Athens echo concerns of leftist politics in America. It was, in short, a great day.

The other great breakout came late in my time in Athens, on an evening when - and this always turns out to be a good idea, everybody remember to do this every time - I snuck off for a free jazz festival in Technopolis, the old industrial district now turned industrial-warehouse-art-space-cool-nightlife-spot. It was a relaxing, good-vibes-only, shaggy evening full of good folk and good tunes, and a nice reminder that cool people do live everywhere if you know where to find them. (Exarchia, the university/leftist neighborhood, also had good vibes, but I didn't have enough time to dig deep there.)

Also found my way to (unbeknownst to me til the afternoon I decided to check it out) the like #4 bar in the world according to some idiot list (lists are fake who cares about lists ABOLISH LISTS) and in this case man it turns out they had great cocktails and bar snacks

 

Anyhow - Athens is not especially calling my name again, much as I loved some of the encounters I got to delight in while there. I feel far more likely to revisit Lesvos or explore more corners of the Peleopnese or various island chains, but I'm glad I went, and I remain eager to keep expanding my horizons. Somehow even with the pandemic, I've managed to visit a new country every year since 2016, a profoundly ludicrous privilege that I don't take lightly!

Up next: well, probably some navelgazing nonsense, but eventually: Sicily! Or [squints at an ancient map] MAGNA GRAECIA?!? They DUPED me, I'm still in Greece! [gnashes teeth, tears clothes, eats a big sardine, goes to sleep immediately]

Athens DID give me a haircut though (well, one guy, not the whole city, although isn't he the product of his environment and therefore the city DID give me a haircut???? MAKES U THINK) so I cannot be mad at it forever. WELL, BYE