Getting to Know The City Of Athens

Not too long ago, Athens used to be the city Greeks loved to hate. Expensive, polluted, overcrowded, and bursting at the seams with more than five million inhabitants – over 40% of the entire country’s population. However, the preparations for the 2004 homecoming Olympics brought forth many changes to the city, and the successful staging of the Games imbued the ancient city and her residents with a newfound confidence that acted like a catalyst for the many changes that are continuing to take place.

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Much like Barcelona, the Olympics were just what Athens needed to get its groove back.The city suddenly, unexpectedly, and almost unabashedly feels young again. Forever the city of a thousand contradictions, Athens is one of the few ancient cities in the world where the cutting edge, the hip, and the modern can suddenly coexist so harmoniously with the classical, complementing each other to near perfection.

Athens today is a strikingly wealthier, more sophisticated, and cosmopolitan city than it was pre-Olympics and most certainly than it was, but no matter how fascinating its current renaissance is, one must keep in mind that this is a city that has gone through countless transformations throughout its long and turbulent history.

The most striking thing about Athens today is that the city continues its urban renewal despite current headaches. Athens saw its illegal migrant population swell to over two million (in just 10 years!), just before the economy collapsed and unemployment rose to 9.2%, creating a difficult situation that neither Athens nor Greece had ever dealt with before.

Metro Syntagma Station

The dawn of the 21st century found the ancient city with a multitude of much-needed changes: a vast new infrastructure system; a sparkling and continuously expanding new Metro and immaculate stations, many of which display the artifacts found during its construction; a new international airport El. Venizelos; miles of new roads and a sorely needed beltway around the city that has eased the city’s infamous traffic and has significantly reduced the city’s equally infamous smog. The ancient sites have been linked together by a promenade, a unique city boardwalk around classical Athens with antiquities on one side and modern-day sidewalk cafes, galleries, renovated mansions, and rotating outdoor art installations on the other. All in all, 10 miles of downtown Athens’s notoriously traffic-clogged streets have been pedestrianized, transforming one of the most pedestrian-unfriendly cities in the world into a stroller’s delight and into a much more charming, accessible, and enjoyable city than before. The capital’s coastline has also been revived with a dizzying selection of cafes, restaurants, promenades, pristine beaches, pedestrian shopping districts and open-air nightclubs by the sea – all a mere tram ride from downtown.

The Athens city hotels have also been going through its own renewal, with classic hotels restored to their former glory and new boutique hotels continuing to pop up all over the city.

Greek cuisine is also continuing its own renaissance at the hands of talented new chefs, making Athens a haven for foodies worldwide; museums are constantly renovated and expanded, while several new and exceptional smaller museums have also joined the already impressive lineup – the stunning New Acropolis Museum will steal the show for many years to come and will hopefully see the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their home - and many galleries and art and exhibition centers are continuing to spring up – the majority of them housed in former warehouses and factories.

Plaka restaurants

The numerous industrial-to-art conversions have been among the most pleasant surprises for the city, for they led almost immediately to the rebirth of formerly run-down and all-but-abandoned neighborhoods. Following the lead of Psirri and Thissio – two ancient neighborhoods neglected in more recent years that are now the hippest downtown destinations – Gazi and Kerameikos have also risen from the ashes, going from gritty to urban chic.

As you explore the city of Athens, try to make it yours. Take some of the existing Organized Tours, walk its streets; take in its scents; linger in its sidewalk cafes, courtyard gardens, squares, and rooftop terraces; take in a show in an ancient open-air theater, or an avant-garde performance, concert, or art exhibition at one of the new multipurpose arts complexes; or enjoy a movie under the stars.

Climb its mountains, swim in its waters, visit its ancient temples and Byzantine churches, try its food and its nightlife, and see as many museums as you can. Take a stroll along the Archaeological Promenade, inside the lush National Gardens and Zappeio gardens, through the many neighborhoods and ports, and find yourself at the top of Lycabettus Mountain or Cape Sounion at dusk for two of the most spectacular sunsets outside of Santorini. Explore its ancient districts and its most modern ones to witness an ancient city discovering its modern soul in front of your very eyes.

Long after you have gone, you may feel a strange call, a certain nostalgia for something you will not be able to explain at first. You will soon realize it is Athens city calling you back like a siren, as she has done to so many of us who have tried to leave her. For anybody that has taken the time to truly get to know her, you will find yourself longing to return to her embrace. Exciting and exasperating, beautiful and gritty, ancient and modern, sultry and restless, seductive and unforgettable – welcome to Athens!