Category Archives: Greece: Athens

Athens Graffiti

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Athens Graffiti Psycho Boys Ellas

Like most European capitals, Athens has a graffiti problem. I think things went into overdrive the last couple of years, what with the demonstrations and all.

In principle, I’m against graffiti when it involves the destruction of personal property and serves no purpose other than to glorify the ego of the artist — like tagging, for instance — but I understand the impulse behind it.

In practice, I’m a big fan of all the graffiti pictured in this post because it carries a message — political, social, or philosophical — and it was painted on the wall of a construction site, hence no property damage, and it took some real creative juices. Initially, I even liked the way the blue in the Psycho Boys tag played off the blue in the planter, but I learned from the comments that the tag is probably related to Greek far-right nationalist party, Golden Dawn. (I thought the symbol was a Celtic cross.) There is nothing more off-putting to me than a group devoted to hate, even when they use pretty blue colors.

Street art is appreciated. Especially Banksy. I wish Banksy would graffiti my whole house and the homes of everyone I know. If Banksy were a blanket, he’d keep me warm at night..

Athens Greece Political Graffiti Prime Minister Wanted

Athens Greece Political Economic Graffiti

Athens Greece Political Art Graffiti

Athens Greece Economic Graffiti. IMF

Athens Greece Graffiti I fear nothing

Athens Greece Graffiti God Bless the Irish Republic of Plaka

Long live the Celts

© 2012 – 2013, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Text and images copyright protected.

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Greek Police II

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Greek-police-Athens

In 2009, I wrote this post on Greek police, but I didn’t have any proof to back up my claims that Greek police look like a clean-cut teenage street gang. Then, last summer, I ran across the scene photographed above in central Athens.

I think I can rest my case now.

This was shot on, arguably, the safest street in Athens’ upscale shopping district. There are seven policemen in the shot (one is in the squad car). Notice how the female cop rests her hand on her sidearm, ready to shoot it out, Annie Oakley style.

© 2010 – 2011, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Text and images copyright protected.

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Things I swore I’d never do again, yet always do again

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Roman Agora, Athens, Greece, Tower of the Winds

I swore never to show up in Athens again without a reservation.

I swore not to pack so much.

I swore not to eat a cheese pie every day.

Hadrian's Library, Athens, Greece, Athina, Roman Agora

I’ve heard that a lot of people will skip Athens entirely and head straight to the islands, especially if they’ve visited Athens before.  Maybe it’s due in part to my bad memory, but I always find it difficult not to spend at least three days in Athens.  The Acropolis still takes my breath away and the sense of living history makes me want to linger.

When I walk through the agora, it’s with Socrates; in Keramikos, Pericles is still giving his famous eulogy for fallen soldiers; and Aeropagus Hill holds the echo of Paul’s “Sermon to an Unknown God”.

Athens, Greece, Roman Agora, Ruins

This time around, I visited the good works of a Roman emperor named Hadrian, who loved Athens at least as much as he loved Rome.  Hadrian’s legacy includes a beautiful library, a Tower of the Winds, a Roman market, and the completion of the largest temple in Greece — the Temple of the Olympian Zeus — that took 700 years to finish.

Athens just wouldn’t be the same without Hadrian.

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Night in Athens

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Parthenon-at-night-Athens-Greece-Acropolis

My first night in Athens, I walk the pedestrian promenade to stave off jet-lag and keep myself from falling asleep too early.

Children play ball on the marble walkway, as they have for millennia, their voices ringing out in laughter from the shrubbery of the southern slope of the Acropolis.

A tightrope walker manages the distance between two trees, ten feet apart.

Elegant couples make their way down the Grand Promenade to a concert at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

Flashes of light and a flurry of photographers follow the prime minister of Greece as he calmly makes his way through the ancient entrance gate. He has a kind face. It must be difficult to be a politician with such a kind face.

Designer blondes in tight white skirts and four inch heels stop for ice cream before the concert. Click, click, click… their heels on the marble steps.

An orthodox priest sings his haunting sermon down from the hills.

A man playing the lute greets me with compliments in Macedonian.

A young Roma woman sits near the entrance to the plaka, shaking a tambourine and singing an old slavic folk song. “Jovano, Jovanke…” My heart tightens, and suddenly I want to go to Yugoslavia, but then I remember that there is no Yugoslavia. I tell myself that I’ll visit it’s ghost soon, but not alone, to go alone would mean certain heartbreak.

That night it rains — big sheets of rain that turn the marble walkway into a slip n’ slide.

The next morning, I make my way to breakfast.  Still half asleep and bleary eyed, I sit down to a rainbow over the Acropolis.

This is how Athens keeps me hooked.

Rainbow-over-acropolis-Athens-Greece

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Athens Meat Market

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My last day in Athens, I was strolling from the ancient Agora up to Omonia when off to the side I spotted the dark entrance to the old meat market.  A whole other world lay inside.  I tried to find out how old the market was, but the only answer I got was “Really old.”  I knew it was one of the last covered markets in a city center so I took out my video recorder and filmed my walk.  I wish we had something like this in DC so that I could talk to a butcher when I needed meat cut just so, but the closest we come to this is the meat counter at Whole Foods.

I keep trying to become a vegetarian but it never sticks.  It’s just so difficult to over-ride those basic instincts.  One whiff of sizzling sirloin and I’m done.  I keep watching those horrible slaughter house videos to steel up my conviction, but a few weeks later I’m back to craving farm animals.  The stroll through Athens meat market didn’t do anything but make me hungry.

There’s something about this market that just lays it out, you know? Nothing clinical about it, no trying to gloss things over with fancy packaging.  Just a bunch of guys with huge cleavers hacking away at meat.

*** WARNING *** If you’re a vegetarian or a member of PETA please spare yourself this video ***

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