ATHENS ,Besides The Ruins

Steve Kerr

Framed in rock on an extreme blue background the creamy stone of the ancient

Acropolis ,crowned by the Parthenon ,observes the modern city of Athens,

respected and loved by the inhabitants as if it were some ancient ,omnipresent

,grandmother who has lived on into eternity in this the cradle of civilisation and

European culture. Reminders of the ancient Greeks are to be found all around

the city from Hadrian’s Arch to the odd column that has recently been

excavated on a busy street. Ancient ruins, an Athenian architect and builder’s

nightmare, when a buildings`foundation is dug , there is a good chance that it

might contain the ruins of an ancient villa or temple, which of course means the

construction is halted, the ruin preserved – and there are literally hundreds of

them in varying shapes and sizes underneath the roads and flats of the modern

city. Athens, the Greek capital, whose identity is so very caught up with those

ruins of antiquity and yet there is so very much more to the Athens of today.

At the very centre of 21 st century Athens is the beating heart of Omonia Square

whose adjacent streets are arteries that pump blood full of buzz, adrenilin and

a zest for life. Athens wakes early and is soon a bed of hyperactivity. On

Athinas Street which connects Omonia and Monastiraki, early morning

shoppers mingle with the odours of the fish and meat markets. The air is also

heavy with the aroma of pistachio nuts, honey, cinnamon, oregano and was

that just a hint of incense? Illegal immigrants congregate on the “platea”

opposite the town hall. Their cheap T-shirts and jeans set them apart from the

local designer clad youths while everywhere flocks of pigeons consume crumbs

from under café tables. Shop fronts ,open to the street, sell cut price shirts,

bags and icons. Street sellers flog potato peelers and mixers. A tiny chapel set

back from the street betrays an abundance of flickering beeswax candles and a

myriad of icons as Athenians file in and out in their hundreds to light candles

and venerate the icons as they pray for health, happiness and an end to the

recent economic crisis that has brought Greece to its knees. The sound of laika

comes from the tatty sad little ouzeries located at the end of narrow closes and

arcades, known in Greek as the cafeneio. The clientele, the low-paid labourers

and jobless from the neighbouring rundown backstreets, the abode of one-euro

shops, cheap souvlakia take-aways, pornographic cinemas and dilapidated flats

with rusty balcony railings. The ouzerie/coffeeshops of Athens , a male

stronghold and bastion of the laika, the distinctly Greek popular music, now so

much influenced by American pop and rock but which, until recently, featured

many Arab and Turkish elements. The Cafeneio where the daily diet of politics

found in newspapers and on television is assured of a heated, lively argument.

1The sun hits the makeshift stalls, sometimes little more than a rug on the

pavement, sprawled out over the extremely narrow sidewalks of Monastiraki,

stained, dirty tapestries that were once some grandmother’s dowry, faded

photos of King Paul and Queen Frederica, torn brown-paged paperbacks,

cracked cups and collectable stamps, coins and once mass-produced

ornaments, all for sale. The flea market, selling this and that for any occasion

or mood, spills out into greater Monastiraki, the sellers begging passers-by to

buy their wares, and often as not, their junk. A former mosque dominates the

square next to Monastiraki station and is a reminder that until 1822 this area

of the world had been for hundreds of years under Turkish rule as part of the

Ottoman Empire. Locals drink retsina and eat souvlakia- Greek fast food,-al

fresco at a popular eatery on the street corner. Tourists look at the menu and

are puzzled by the mannerisms of the clientele and mesmerised by the gravelly

vocals of the Rethbetika, music with its roots in Asia Minor, known as the Greek

blues,.The living Monastirakis selling memories of the authentic and of the old

Greece.

A walk across the road, on the right hand side of Ermou Street, lies the area

known as Psirri. Up to a few years ago Psirri was a collection of narrow, dirty

streets full of graffiti covered crumbling houses, old alleyways littered with

refuse and dead pigeons. A recent rejuvenation and a surge of interest in the

neighbourhood has led to its becoming a hub for trendy, highly rated bars and

eateries. If a few years ago Psirri was a crumbling backwater, it at least had a

favourable display of interesting Athenian period architecture, dotted with

buildings that had avoided demolition by city planners in the 1960s or the

occasional earthquake. Lord Byron was once a resident and it was here that he

wrote ‘The Maid of Athens’. Its sister neighbourhood Gazi however, lacked any

sort of charm whatsoever. A grim, dull area and home to the gasworks, full of

derelict warehouses and faceless flats next to the railway tracks Gazi , like

Psirri, reinvented itself and today is the hip hotspot of Athenian nightlife with

an abundance of bouncy, quirky little bars , restaurants and wall-to-wall trendy

night clubs. These days Gazi ,renamed as Technopolis (Art City),never sleeps

but prefers to dance the night away. A short walk away, situated between

Syntagma Square and Monastiraki, tucked snugly away at the bottom of the

Acropolis, is Plaka, the romantic ,old quarter of Athens which also boasts the

most interesting and intact ancient ruins in the city. A tourist magnet with

numerous hotels, its cobbled pedestrianised streets are chocablock with

trinkets. “ I love Athens,” T-shirts, guidebooks and other items of interest to the

city’s waves of tourists who are inclined to conduct most of their business in the

area ,wandering around the pretty houses in its narrow streets and dining in its

numerous tavernas.Some even manage to find the secluded Anafiotika,a maize

2of twisting streets,a village within a village nestling in a corner under the

Acropolis. The narrow Ermou Street and surrounding thoroughfares that wind

down from Syntagma Square to the old town form the city’s main shopping

precinct where some of Athens’ leading retail outlets are to be found. Several

quaint tiny chapels dating back to the Byzantium era punctuate the route,

dwarfed by their lofty concrete neighbours. They are regularly inspected by

curious tourists and devout shoppers. The former Royal Palace stands

magnificently in Syntagma, its robust proud countenance dominates the

square. Built by the first king of modern Greece, the Bavarian-born Otto, a

descendant of the ancient Byzantine emperors, the building is now where

Parliament meets. From the 1820s to the 1970s monarchs arrived and

departed with great frequency from.this Athenian addresss. In 1974 a

democratic referendum came out in favour of a republic which Greece has been

ever since. Although King Constantine and Queen Anna Maria, the last

monarchs, are long gone the Changing of the Guard can still be witnessed daily

outside the former Royal Palace. Syntagma Square, along with Omonia is one

of the nucleai of Athens. Its sister square Omonia, connected through the wide

boulevards of Stadiou and Panepistimiou ,has a degree of infamy for seediness

and in recent years has acquired even a reputation for being dangerous at

night, Syntagma ,on the other hand,enjoys a far more solubrious status

housing five-star hotels within its boundaries including the Grand Bretagne

where Sir Winston Churchill once set up temporary residence. Yellow taxis drop

off and pick up passengers outside its fast food outlets .Its peripteros decked in

the colourful garb of hundreds of postcards and magazines while trams and an

assortment of other wailing traffic flow past the cool shady palms of the

national gardens as they move gently at the suggestion of a breeze. The

weeping willows at the back of St Paul ́s Anglican Church keep their mournful

watch over Amalias Avenue as the traffic lights change to green beneath the

gaze of a crumbling 19th-century block of flats, its brown shutters broken and

its once noble exterior decayed and covered in political graffiti, the bare

stonework open for all to see as Athenians go hurriedly about their daily

routines. Gypsies beg on the street outside the Zappeion, a large public park

with a few upmarket cafés while outside the gates of the Parliament building a

woman in black yells out her frustration at the current economic crisis and on

how Greece should be governed, to bemused passers-by. A party of primary

school children pass through the coolness of the National Gardens on a daytrip,

a break from lessons. They chant in unison `Nero! Nero! ́- water, water,

followed by ́Koulourakia`- biscuits. They giggle beside the cool pond ́s shady

rill under the tall palm trees as they march along its sheltered paths. Waiters

stride aimlessly back and forth in the precincts of the nearby Oasis Cafe. Birds

3fly gracefully between the trees, they the garden ́s only permanent residents, as

the public wander in and out of this tranquil haven stopping at the café to sip a

medium sweet frappé - iced coffee. A stone’s throw away outside the former

palace, soldiers stand guard dressed in the traditional foustanella, complete

with tassled caps and shoes topped with blood red pompoms.

Athens’ classical shopping thoroughfare, Voukourestiu Street, lies further down

from Syntagma Square just off Panepistimiou. It rises upwards towards a steep

hill populated by high-end jewellers, Haute Couture and classy boutiques

among them an interesting collection of elegant, although somewhat sterile

designer shops. There is, unsurprisingly, a distinct lack of pricetags in the

windows. The street climbs further into the narrow, steep sidewalks of

Kolonaki,on the slopes of Lycavettus Mountain.The gentrified most exclusive of

Athenian neighbourhoods, home to Athenian old money and its aristocrats. A

lone ancient ruin – a small column – sits comfortably between the busy cafés

on Kolonaki Square and from which the name Kolonaki is derived. The

sulubrious elitist cafés, meeting place of Anthenian high society. The cool shade

of the café terraces, cloistered by the thick leaves that sprung from the

creeping branches of the nearby trees protect the clientele from the sweltering

heat of a midday sun. Ageing Athenians with political connections, former big

names in the music business and Greek cinema, former frequent guests at the

Royal Palace, all of them now elderly and frail. Old women in coloured cotton

suits, accompanied by their young Philipino maids, smoke dainty, lady-like

cigars. Portly and bald old men who once held a degree of influence and

power, drool over strong, sweet Greek coffees in miniature white cups, the

noisy ordinary lives of the every day Athenians around them ,a world away.

Nowadays in a more meritocratic, egalitarian society, to have money can open

many doors which were once firmly closed. The cafés, once exclusively the

domain of Athenian high society, now open to all who can afford to pay. The

once beautiful ,elderly aristocratic women, wrinkled and bowed, whose wealth

and status can no longer buy them beauty smoke and order more coffee. The

Café Capo rests on the edge of the square, Kolonaki’s most fashionable and

pretentious coffee house, a mecca for the cream of Athenian posers who clutch

onto bags with Cerrutti, Armani and Versace emblazened on them. It is a place

to people-watch,a ghetto of socialites, a plethora of celebrities -contemporary

Greek pop singers, film producers, writers,actors and would-be’s who come

here to be seen amid the bold and the beautiful on Glitteratti Street. Antiques

smile out of shop windows in the neighbouring narrow, steep streets .Every

where shoe shops.This area of urban chic boasts more than any other area of

Greece.while also in the vicinity stands the flat where the Duke of Edinburgh’s

mother sheltered Jews during the Nazi occupation. A hundred yards downhill

4on Skoufa Street the magnificent dome of St. Dionisis rises into the air as if it

were the Kolonakis’ guardian angel. It is entered from the street by an

impressive array of steps, its interior by far the most stunning of the multitude

of churches found in Athens whose current mayor happens to be an atheist,

born in New York. The church boasts a highly acclaimed Byzantine choir which

can be heard at the Sunday morning liturgy which is ususally televised

nationwide. The ‘Epitaphios’ procession on the evening of Good Friday winds

downhill from St. Dionisis along Panepistimiou and into Syntagma Square.Then

back up Queen Sophia Avenue ,the citys` most graceful street ,full of neo

classical mansions,notable museums and foreign embassies. At the centre is a

bier with an elaborate display of colourful flowers woven into it and in which is

carried the image of the dead Christ through the streets. Such processions are

enacted in every parish of this very Orthodox city . At St. Dionisis,however,

there is a more ostentatious manifestation of pomp and ceremony ,in

that,Christ is given a state funeral with the president and other state dignitaries

in attendance. Military bands accompany the route playing Chopin’s mournful

funeral march. Holy Week which climaxes into Easter, by far the major festival

of the magnanimous and exuberant Greek Orthodox Church, sees Athens

transcend into a location of peace and tranquility as Athenians abandon their

city homes and return to their roots in the mountains or the islands for the

celebration of the “Anastasi.” During Holy Week Athenian restaurants turn into

a gastronomic walhalla for vegetarians as menus fill up with delicious Lenten

fayre. The Anastasi, which takes place at midnight on Easter Eve, ends the

fasting of Lent as on the steps of churches throughout Athens the cry of “Cristos

Anesti!” – Christ is risen - is met with the reply ”Alithos Anesti!”- He is risen

indeed. Colourful fireworks fill the sky and glowing candles the streets ,as

Athenians scurry home for a post-midnight meal of patsas ,(a haggis type soup)

and bright ,red eggs. Athens returns to its manic self by the Wednesday after

Easter. It is again transformed into a haven of peace during high summer when

in August streets empty, offices close and shops put up their shutters as

Athenians leave the sweltering heat behind them and head for the Aegean or

the Ionnian sea Despite the high temperatures this is propbably the best time

to see Athens for what it really is – a beautiful city -devoid of any heavy traffic.

Greece,like Easter is a story of death and ressurection.After Greece’s

resurrection as a nation ,following the war of independance, the pleasant

coastal town of Nafplio in the Pelopponese was made the capital city of the

new Greek state in 1829. It remained so until King Otto moved it for emotional

and historical reasons to Athens in 1834, then a settlement of only four

thousand concentrated around what is now Plaka. Otto then commissioned a

group of architects to build a new stately, elegant city fit for the capital of a

5modern state. The outcome was an exceptional creation of classical orientated

edifices which apart from the old Palace and the Zappeion Exhibition Hall also

included the imposing University of Athens, National Library and the old

Parliament building which apart from the odd political graffiti are as pristine

and pleasing to the eye as the day they were built. Greeks as a people are

passionately political which has given birth to much graffiti, as much an

integral part of Athens as the Acropolis. The city’s population multiplied

greatly in the 1920s when thousands of refugees from Asia Minor poured into

the city following the sacking of Smyrna.,often resented by the locals. They

were followed by a host of other Asian Greeks as part of the population

exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1922. This had a massive impact on

the culture of Athens and gave rise to Nea Smyrni and Nea Ionia, two pleasant

Athenian suburbs that started off as little more than refugee camps.

The city’s population again saw a steep rise in the 1950s and 60s when mass

immigration from rural Greece increased. In the decades that followed the fall

of the Colonel’s dictatorship in 1974, an event that also had a groundbreaking

impact on Greek society, Athens grew in prosperity and developed a robust

confidence that saw a revitalised, renovated city that hosted the 2004 Olympic

Games and the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest .The Kalomarmaro Stadium

,located on Vasileus Constandinou Avenue,– the venue for the first Olympiad of

the modern era - observed the rise of the new Athens from opposite the

Zappeion, as it also witnessed its economic fall from grace in 2007.

The two main arteries that flow from the heart of Omonia Square, Acharnon

Avenue and Patission Avenue head towards the neighbourhood of Patissia.

Among Athens’ busiest streets both are filled with murderous traffic and lined

with shops and cafés. The historic, much scarred Athens Polytechnic lies a short

walk from Omonia, on Patission, a symbol of the price of modern Greek

democracy. It was here that in November 1973 the students barricaded

themselves inside the building in protest at the dictatorship. The brutal

suppression of this act by the military saw the beginning of the end of the

Colonel’s regime. The attractive National Museum lies in a spacious garden

further along just below Exarchia, an area much associated with anti-

establishment and leftist activity. Patission was also home to the great opera

soprano Maria Callas whose house can still be seen.A museum dedicated to her

is to be found in Gazi. Her rendition of Bellinis`Costa Diva, is still heard high

above the roar of the trams and buses. A short journey from Omonia, on the

excellent renovated Metro ,takes you to the working class suburb of Kato

Patissia, centred around Acharnon Avenue, a vibrant lively hive of activity, this

till recently predominantly Greek area ,where the music of Kazanjidis and

Marinella once blared out of quintessentially Greek cafeneions., Kato Patissia

6is now one of Athens’ most multi-cultural areas where you are as likely to hear

Kurdish and Punjabi being spoken as Greek. Here Athens faces a dilemma in

the definition of what constitutes an Athenian and what defines Greekness.

The thousands of immigrants who have swelled the city in the last twenty years

have often been blamed for the steep rise in crime. This has fuelled popular

support for the extreme right wing Golden Dawn Party whose activities led to

the government imposing an outright ban on the organisation in 2013.

Although crime has risen in Athens over the last twenty years it is still much

safer than many other European capitals and Despite its reputation Omonia

Square is perfectly safe during the day.

Kato Patissia’s Acharnon has a pleasant, unpretentious air about it and reflects

the Athens of the everyday average populace as well as the changing face of

the city. The upmarket suburb of Kifissia, at the end of the metro line,with its

graceful tree lined boulevards,the bustling middle class neighbourhood of

Pangrati, close to the centre and thecosmoplitan,southern, seaside suburb of

Glyfada ,with its marinas and beach clubs, are charming areas of the city,

worth a visit. From the hundreds of bakeries in central Athens drifts the

appetising aroma of a diverse range of pastries, for Athens is a pastry paradise

offering scrumptious spinach pasties, cheese pasties and the deliciously sweet

cream pasties powdered with castor sugar, - bougatsa. Athenians, inclined

only to have coffee at breakfast, ravenously tuck into them at bakeries and

take away shops for elevenses.

The electric current that revolves around this extraordinary city reflects its

people. Athenians are by nature passionate, critical, demonstrative,

argumentative and generous, They do not hide their feelings. Happy or angry,

they let it show. A stiff upperlip is not on the Athenian agenda. The Acropolis is

always evident throughout central Athens, Its giant blue and white Greek flag

blesses the capitals` inhabitants.The traditional historic symbol of this modern

city where in popular culture a broken-hearted Cliff Richard sang “The Next

Time” in the 1960s film “Summer Holiday”and Melina Mercouri was

disillusioned by the American Homer’s interpretation of the Greek myths in the

timeless “Never on a Sunday”. It is wise when gazing up at the Acropolis to

remember that in ancient times two Athenian citizens, who so much shaped

our own modern society, Socrates and Aristotle, once walked in nearby streets.

The highspeed ferries await you at the other extreme of the Kifissia metro line

in .the port of Pireaus where”Never on a Sunday “ was set .There, the azure of

the Aegean is your oyster.