Category: Athens tourist attractions

Holidays to Athens

You might be forgiven to think Athens doesn’t measure up to your expectations, but only if you haven’t made an effort to get to know it –  just to because from where you stand all buildings seem like ugly, greyish concrete boxes, the traffic noise is deafening, the air as polluted as it gets and the heat is debilitating, it doesn’t mean this is all there is to it. So, if you decide to leave for the islands as fast as you can, it’s your loss.

True, Athens is largely devoid of medieval, renaissance and baroque buildings, because it was at best a village in the midst of scattered antique remains when it was made the capital of modern Greece in the 19th century. This means you have a whole lot of splendid monuments from the 4th century BC to about the 1st century AD to visit, and then you have to fast-forward in time. The sumptuous houses of the merchants, liberation heroes and early politicians of the new Greek state are also largely decrepit or torn down today, as they got overrun by a city developing megalomania and attracting everybody that could make the move from rural hard work to urban life. This means ancient monuments and modernity is what you’ll have to settle for – if you’re not a history sleuth, which might make your stay a whole lot more fun, of course.