• Coffee shops, bakeries, pharmacies, shoe stores.
  • Cats and dogs.
  • An incessant stream of traffic, 24/7. No gridlock, just heavy traffic flow.
  • Friendly and super-helpful locals.
  • Graffiti; much of it political as far as I can tell, and probably for good reason.
  • Lots of lovely ‘old’ buildings (‘old’ is a relative term, here in Athens), many neglected.
  • Quite a bit of really new retail, with tasteful, clever, fresh, brand aesthetic. It feels like there’s a youthfulness growing up amongst ancient roots.
  • Wind. I think the last few days have been unusually windy. And wind over a dry ground means…
  • Dust. The archaeological sites – particularly on the exposed Acropolis – were swirling with dust whipped up by the wind. Many an eye was smarted, and many a hat was chased.

To go into a bit more detail on subjects that take my fancy:

Transport

Lots & lots of scooters and motorbikes; all sorts, from Honda Dax, to Ducati Diavels. Lots of Honda Transalps and Africa Twins. Plenty of Suzuki V-Stroms. Lots of Yamaha XT660X. Plenty of old bikes, but also lots of new models. Harley-Davidsons aren’t rare.

Not too many bicycles. I think the number of cars & motorbikes, and a complete lack of cycle-specific infrastructure makes cycling tricky/dangerous.

Cars are plentiful; an interesting mix of European and Japanese models. There are not a lot of newer models on the street, I guess due to the economic situation of the last decade. Some of the older models are fairly well preserved. I would have liked to have photographed them all, but then I wouldn’t have been doing much else. There were a few VW Beetles, some older Mercedes-Benz, and some other Japanese options that we never saw in New Zealand, like the Toyota Corolla AE111 hatchback – we got the sedan, liftback, and wagon. Spotted this Citroën deux chevaux, and a not-too-beat-up Nissan B12 Sunny coupe, from the ’80s.

Architecture

Of course, there’s the old stuff. The Parthenon was built over 2400 years ago. It’s a concept that is difficult to grasp. A lot of these temples and homes and roads and cisterns and marketplaces had been standing for hundreds of years before Christ was born. A walk through the Ancient Agora, past the temples of the many Greek, and later, Roman, gods and then on up the Areopagus hill, you get the idea of what Paul was on about when he gave his talk, referring to the unknown god.

Then there are a large number of Christian churches (Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and I did find an Anglican) – almost one around each corner – and a few mosques, built over the two millennia since. And yet I imagine only a fraction of those built still remain.

Recent architectural history is no less colourful. The apartment we’re staying in is about three kilometres north of Athens’ city centre, and the walk into town is equal parts fascinating and sad. There are a lot of empty old buildings. Up to 80% of the iconic builds of the 19th and 20th centuries have been demolished.

Here’s an article that is a great and worthy read, and can explain the state of affairs much better than I. It also explains some of the bullet-holes I saw in the odd building facade.

I could also go on about the food, but it’s getting late, and we’ve got to pack for an early ferry to Paros in the morning. I might leave that for one of the boys to talk about.