Everything You've Heard about Athens is Wrong

My trip to Athens happened in two parts-- the first lasting two nights, and the second lasting one night and an afternoon -- separated by a two night trip to Mykonos. We our one first full day in Athens involved an eight-hour daytrip to Delphi. While our time in the city was piecemeal, I feel like I gained a tiny bit of insight into how to travel in Athens.

As much as I hate to admit it, the most fun part of the city was the hostel. The Backpackers' Hostel in Athens was filled to the brim with travelers (strangely, most of them seemed to be American Southerners with a few Australians thrown into the midst.) The hostel was set up for travelers to mingle, featuring a well attended roof-top bar with a great view of the acropolis. Aside from the obligatory and boring "where are you from," "where have you been," and "isn't Bush terrible" discussions, I had a very good conversation about the academic world with an MD cum PhD from Hopkins and had a dozen or so conversations about Italy. I met this interesting girl from Madison who had already spent a semester abroad in Athens and had come back for a few days to see it all from a different perspective. All in all, it was like a party full of person-sitting-next-on-a-long-flight-style conversations.

Because the roof-top bar closed at midnight, the one of the blokes working at the hostel served as the grand marshal of the idiot parade, leading all fifty of us on a kilometer-long stumble to the nearest nightclub/hookah-bar. We eventually became even more intoxicated on overpriced drinks and then commenced some forms of movements that resembled dancing. Of course, all of the Greeks at the club were far too cool to even think of dancing. After a few hours of inhaling heavy-metal laced shisha smoke, we came to the consensus that it would be best to try and negotiate our way through the labyrinthine streets of the Plaka district and return to the hostel.

As we were leaving, our group of about seven people got split up. Ben, a brother and sister that were traveling together, and a random guy from Hawaii, sped up and went one direction. The girl from Wisconsin, the one from California, and I lagged a bit behind and possibly went off on a different street. After a few minutes, we all agreed that the drunken stumbling had made us hungry and we found a souvlaki stand. I quickly ordered mystery meat on a stick, while I think the girl from WI ordered a gyro sans meat. Predictably, the sight of me enjoying my souvlaki tempted the girl from CA to put her vegetarianism aside and decide to consume things that had parents. She ordered a souvlaki but sadly couldn't finish it. After making another stop, this time for ice-cream, we were somehow able to navigate back to the hostel.

Another unexpected highlight of Athens was the visiting the open air market in Plaka. Every week, some authority sets aside a square and some alleys in Plaka, the touristy, semi-medieval section of town, to be used as a flea market. The market was a great place for people watching, as every Athenian had poured in to get their hands on counterfeit Pumas. Between the racks of genuine "Huggo Bosch" tee-shirts, shelves of hunting supplies and camouflage, tables of Nazi war-memorabilia, and stand selling antique tooth brushes, there wasn't all that much to buy. Therefore, I decided to take it easy and sat down at a cafe to have some terrible Greek espresso.

Probably seeing the atrocious state my Rockports were in, a shoeshine offered to shine them for three euros. Not really having anything else to do, I took him up on the offer and he pantomimed for me to put my foot on a bench so he could get to work. After a good seven or eight minutes of cleaning and polishing, the scuff marks disappeared and my beat up dress-sneakers looked like new shoes. Predictably, a crowd of 15-20 tourists had gathered to watch the apparent spectacle. Right after I got up to pay him, the gaggle of tourists converged on the guy and started negotiating for their own shoeshines. I had to fight my way through the crowds just to get back to the main part of the square. I suspect the guy is a fixture in that square, so if you're ever in Athens and happen to want cleaner shoes, I bet you can find him.

Obviously, the interesting thing about going Athens has nothing to with its flea markets or with its hostels. The reason why (almost) everyone goes to Athens is to see the building that employees the Doric order at the peak of its evolution-- the Parthenon. Unfortunately, seeing the Acropolis during the summer is an act of masochism. Once you get past the ticket taker, everything seems to warm up by 10 degrees. The climb up the acropolis is completely exposed so by the time you reach top, you're completely drenched in sweat. The other critical factor is the sun. It's so bright that spending a few seconds without sunglasses is painful.

We began by making our way to the Theater of Dionysus and then starting our ascent. After climbing up through some ruble, we got to the ruined Propylaea. As soon as you I walked through the Propylaea, the I immediately face-to-face with the Parthenon. Sweaty, tired, crabby and surprised may be one of the best ways to stand to behold the sublime. We went around and saw the rest of the monuments on the acropolis. Surprisingly, the modern Greeks chose to build a museum right on top of the acropolis. The museum, full of sculpture, is obviously a must see.

The way down from the Acropolis is when things got weird. We decided to walk down the other side of the hill, on a path through the olive grove. All of a sudden, I started to hear these crashing sounds and saw some stones tumbling down the hill about 20m to my right. Next, I heard incomprehensible shouting coming from a little higher up on the hill. It took my brain a few seconds to really put two and two together, but there was some lunatic picking up pieces of rubble and chucking them down at tourists. The guy had a giant black beard, a grungy appearance, and appeared unusually calm. I immediately said to Ben, "Let's get the hell out of here!" Ben reacted with a confused stare and asked what I was talking about. After quickly explaining the situation to him, we both sprinted for the exit. After finding it, I tried to tell the ticket takers there that a man was throwing rocks at tourists. Of course, they had no clue what I was saying, so I just said "Police" and pointed towards the Acropolis. They finally got the message and Ben and I went to go get a snack.

A little while afterwards, we decided to ascend Mt. Lycabettus, the highest hill in Athens. It was a pretty easy walk over from the subway and, instead of doing yet another strenuous ascent, we opted for the funicular. I you want details, email me, but it's extremely easy to sneak on to the funicular. Because it's the only practical way of transporting stuff up the step hill, half of the car was filled with supplies for the cafes at the summit. At the top, the view is predictably spectacular. From an overhead view, Sprawling Athens looks like something out of Sim City-- mile after mile of identical, square blocks of concrete housing.

The last thing that we wanted to see in Athens was the Archaeological Museum, well outside of the center but a mandatory site. What really endeared me to Athens was not the Museum but the walk over to it. In order to get there, we had to walk through the anonymous, concrete space that dominates Athens. There were all sorts of pirate software shops, bootleg video stands, donkeys pulling oversized crates, the Original Heidelberg (a printing press) proudly on display, and too many other things to count. Somehow all of it was essentially Greek.

The point is that Athens is almost a first class European Capital and should be treated as such. I think that too many guide books and bitter travelers scare people away from Athens. The Acropolis is not the only unique thing in Athens.

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