A short note on Athens

We transited Athens three times on this trip, never getting outside the airport on purpose. We had done a day excursion from a cruise trip in 2011, seeing the Parthenon & Acropolis, some museums and a good restaurant. We also saw a poorly-run city, full of graffiti and men standing around. We were unimpressed.

That was a decade ago, and things may be much better. They may be worse. Here is something else to consider. Athens is not Greece. Okay, it’s the capital of Greece, it is “in” Greece, but it is not Greece. When I talk to Greeks, they always lament if visitors don’t get out to the countryside where the real Greece is. They are right.

The important sites in Athens are bucket-list items, and you owe it to yourself to get to them. But that’s a day (or two) visit at most. Western visitors tend to romanticize Athens as the be-all of all things Greek, but while it is the political and financial center of Greece, it was not always so. Athens has had mega-boom and bust cycles, and as recently as the mid-nineteenth century it was small village with a big set of ruins. Only after Greek independence did the new Greek King Othon choose to build a capital city around the legendary remains that were Athens. The sprawling result is a metropolitan area or over two million. In my humble opinion, it’s Washington DC with older monuments but less charm.

As if to verify our suspicions, Greek government employee unions went on strike on our last day there, when we were transiting Athens. You might think after eighteen months of lock downs and faltering business, Greek workers would be excited to be at the forefront of Europe’s re-opening. You would be wrong.

So, yes, visit Athens on the way in or out of Greece. There is even a regular metro train that can take you downtown in under an hour. But spend the bulk of your time elsewhere on the mainland or in the Greek isles. Greek hospitality will not disappoint you!