MANY PEOPLE (and I’m probably one of them) look better at night. Worry-lines, wrinkles, and signs of wear’n’tear aren’t as noticeable somehow as they are in daylight. And, I guess for pretty much the same reason, many cities – like ATHENS, Greece – look better at night, too. With the flood-lit Acropolis looming high over everything and visible from almost everywhere, this one-time capital of the ancient world is take-your-breath-away glorious …
Earlier that afternoon, as our coach carted us into Athens through crowded, untidy, exhaust-fumey streets, not a single philosopher-in-a-toga nor a god-in-the-nude did we see! However, just around the corner were the famous twin columns of Hadrian’s Arch. And just along the road – nestled beneath rocky cliffs and the remains of Greece’s most famous temple, the Parthenon – was the city’s oldest markets, the colourful Plaka, with its cobbled lanes, bazaars, and cafés.
We wanted to spend some drachmas. We wanted to haggle with street vendors. And, two hours later, we’d scored a stylish black fisherman’s cap, enjoyed an on-the-footpath shoeshine, tried our ‘Grenglish’ (Greek-sounding English) on several unsuspecting locals, studied old men playing backgammon on an upturned box in the middle of the road, and sampled our first
souvlaki (spicy grilled beef stuffed inside pita bread).
Not bad for Day #1 in Athens!
Greece (in case you don’t know) hangs down into the eastern Mediterranean Sea, an unruly jumble of coastline and islands below Albania, Macedonia, and Bulgaria. (If you’re coming through Turkey, head north, then take a left …)
Greek history dates back as far as 6000BC – and we won’t even go there in this brief article. (I still get my Minoans and Mycenaeans confused with my Byzantines!) Always a land for worshippers of untold deities, ancient Greece boasted a smorgasbord of impressive gods and goddesses – like Zeus (king of gods), Poseidon (god of the sea), Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty), and Apollo (god of light and music). Greek culture also turned out some of the planet’s cleverest thinkers – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle – and once led the world in civilised democracy.
Greece today, in spite of seeming somewhat worn-out, is annually overrun with fun-lovers and holiday-makers. And tourists of every nationality queue daily to ogle at its museums, crawl over its archaeological remains, and take too many photos of statues-with-broken-arms
Which is what our group of 15 eager Kiwis proceeded to do on Day #2.
Our Greek guide was a dark-haired beauty with a sing-song voice plus a tendency to end every phrase with an extra ‘a’:
“… a small-a port-a on the west-a coast-a …”
“… with cruise-a boats-a that go to the islands-a …’
“… twice a week-a …”
We followed her to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and jogged (briefly) around the new 1896 Olympic Stadium.
We admired the changing-of-the-guard at Parliament – soldiers in white skirts, leggings, and red shoes (clogs) topped with pom-poms, goose-stepping to the beat of a brass band.
We bussed steeply upwards to the mighty Acropolis, the one-time military fortress and religious site that towers way above Athens. It’s seen lots of collapsing, toppling, and falling-down over the centuries – and on the morning we called, the massive skeleton of the Parthenon (built by a fellow named Pericles in 510BC) was supported by a jigsaw of scaffolding. We learned (tried to learn?) the difference between Ionic and Doric columns. And we tried to imagine what, in earlier times, was a vast elegant showcase of marble temples crammed with bronze- or gold-plated statues, and gigantic open-air theatres where Athenians who could hold a tune tried out in the chorus of Greek tragedies.
Heady stuff, I tell you. And ours were spinning that afternoon as we drove down the beautiful Saronic Coast – its blue mill-pond waters dotted with cruiseships – to the Temple of Poseidon. En route, we:
- hand-picked some real, live cotton …
- sighted Romani gypsies, their tents, and their rubbish along the roadside …
- gulped strong Greek coffee, and gobbled moussaka (eggplant and beef pie), olives (green, brown, black) and sickly-sweet Turkish Delight at a roadside taverna.
That evening, we kicked back at a seafood restaurant, sipped a little ouzo, and felt a little homesick under the spell of a bouzouki serenade.
