Athens: a mermaid, a monster

I love Athens because it contains many cities within one city.

Rush to its little Paris, especially in rain. That’s Kolonaki. With its queer, little cafés, and its expensive boutiques. Walk a little, and you find yourself at the little Vienna, with the neoclassical university buildings, designed by an Austrian. Not far away, you find yourself again in France: Monmatre; that is, Exarchia. Hot chocolate in mismatched cups. A suspended bicycle, indoors. Friends from university. An ex you haven't met for ages. He looks a bit aged. Policemen eyeing you suspiciously. A street musician with a hat that has seen better days.

I love Athens.

Because you walk a few steps, and you find yourself in a completely different city. Cheap bookstores packed with books. Student eateries, where everyone can become your friend. Souvenir shops. Tourists that ask directions in French and are not surprised when you reply to them in their language. Free maps that you never pick up; if the pickpockets think you are not a local, they will never leave you alone.

Every other city combined: that was Athens for me.

And now that I live in a foreign city, I mind-map it according to Athens. My native city is pre-installed in me; every other city is translated according to Athens. A city is never just clean; it is more clean or less clean than Athens. A city is never quiet, lively, beautiful, or mesmerizing of its own accord, but only in comparison to mama Athens.

A purple, hypnotic city. Ancient wisdom and contemporary blues. A ticket to the underworld. No water. Dead rivers. Puppeteers. Restauranteurs ashamed to serve their grandmothers’ recipes. Passes that take you exactly where the city wants. A city that hugs you like a woolen blanket. A city where everyone connects with everyone or is about to connect. Noise, dust, dirt. A sunset so beautiful it can kill. A little sea on the side. 

Mountains, curvy and feminine, around the city, protecting you in their wombs, creating cradles. And the sea glittering, silver and gold, from afar. A mermaid. A promise.

Or is it an enormous, cement monster that sometimes, from the airplane above, just before landing, you see and shiver from fear?

It might devour you in a single bite.

A silver, enormous monster that gave birth to me, devours me each time like a god and finally hands me off herself to another city, but without letting me go completely. Yes; wherever I go, Athens is present.

You can never leave Athens; that is the catch.

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Are you planning a trip? Think like a geographer!

I recently planned a sightseeing tour for a friend who was visiting Athens. We had less than a day in our hands, that’s why we tried to make the most of it.

How we did it? Well, I decided to think like a geographer. And it worked: my friend was able to enjoy some of the most important sights and to appreciate the unique flavour of the city, something that is not obvious at first sight. In other words, even if we had such a little time available, the choice of sights was to the point, insofar as my friend got a true sense of place regarding Athens.

Are you planning a trip or a short holiday? These three tips will help you make the most of it:

#1 PLAN AHEAD

I totally recommend planning ahead. For instance, if you are travelling in the summer, note on the map the places you would like to visit taking into account that it would be better to visit the western places in the morning and the eastern places in the afternoon. This way you avoid unnecessary exposure to the sun.

While some travellers prefer to be spontaneous and discover the place on the spot, without any planning whatsoever, I personally believe that when you have a good idea of the place beforehand you can enjoy the place more. When you are more in control of your trip you feel more relaxed and less tired, and what’s more: when you avoid fretting over details such as finding the correct bus, you can appreciate your surroundings and focus on your immediate experience.

#2 USE PRINTED-OUT MAPS

While it’s becoming more common to use maps on our smartphones, printing them out has its own advantages. For once, you save battery. Then, it’s safer when you ask passers-by for directions – if they want to run away with your printed map, let them! Besides, with a printed-out map you can navigate and talk on the phone simultaneously. Finally, it’s easier to take notes directly on the map, mark places for future reference etc.

Don’t worry about the lack of a GPS – you are a geographer now! Look for the place of the sun, and according to whether it’s morning or afternoon you will be able to locate the East and the West respectively.

#3 LOOK FOR THE SENSE OF THE PLACE

Geographers are not tourists; they do not wish to accumulate encyclopedic knowledge about places. Rather, they are looking for the sense of the place, the connections and the relationships that create and constitute that place. That’s why me and my friend, when we visited a location, we tried to reflect upon it and upon the feelings it gave us, while me, as a local, brought up some background stories of these locations. This was not done in a tourist-guide fashion, but in a way that made the place alive and meaningful to my friend who was not an Athens native.

Geography is not just locations, coordinates and historical sights; besides, too much information can be rather. But, when everything else about a place is forgotten, its sense will remain. Wherever you travel, try to discover the sense of the place.

Thanks for reading and enjoy your trip!

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The Athens polytechnic graffiti and the subtle power of urban art

Some days ago, the residents of Athens, Greece, woke up to a huge black-and-white graffiti covering the historic Athens Polytechnic University. It was created during the night, and as you can see, it is not a clumsy job. It needs time, craftsmen, and money to create such a thing.

Who did this? And why? And most importantly, why is everyone talking about it? And not just talking about it; as is common for us Greeks, this has become a philosophical debate. This time is about art. What is art? Is this art? For some people, this is not art, because it is ugly. For others, it is not, because no one says so (it is not part of an art exhibition, that is). For others, it is not, because it is vandalism, an act of destruction.

But why is everyone so uncomfortable? For various reasons, I think. First of all it is bleak. If our journalists were more familiar with Dickens, they would use Bleak House in their headline puns. It is bleak in a deep, depressive way. Some of us can see our troubles, our fears, our worries, projected right onto these walls. No wonder we don't like it at all.

Moreover, I think people are uncomfortable because they have connected it with fear. If someone is capable of going along with such a large-scale project surreptitiously, this someone will do it again. Are our monuments safe? It's all we have, you know.

Besides, this particular building complex carries special significance for us. Athens Polytechnic University was where on November 14-17, 1973, during the military junta, the student uprising took place. Since then, the building has become a symbol; especially during the demonstrations commemorating the 1973 uprising. It has seen countless sit-ins, protest meetings, demonstrations, and in its quaint neoclassical majesty, notwithstanding its wounds, it still stands there today keeping that tragic November night alive.

This graffiti is yet another wound. And in my opinion, this is art. True art kicks us out of our comfort zone, helps us become part of the wound. It celebrates the wound. And, to paraphrase Williams Carlos Williams, the famous American poet, a new coat of paint / is one way of expressing it. However ugly this graffiti may be, since people want to get rid of it so much, it may have hit a particularly raw, raw, nerve.  

Thank you for reading.

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Czech… and the city

According to Paul Knox (1995), the city offers an immense variety of opportunities. Look how he quotes Fischer citing ‘the reaction of a ‘refugee’ New Yorker living in Vermont: 

I kept hearing this tempting ad for a Czechoslovakian restaurant… When the ad went on to say that this particular place had been chosen by the critic of the Times out of all the Czech restaurants in New York as the very best, I could have broken down and cried. We hardly get a choice of doughnut stands in Vermont; New Yorkers idly pick and choose among Czech restaurants.

This is how I want to live. To be able to pick and choose among all the interesting things the city has to offer. 

By the way, there are 2 Czech restaurants in Athens (I have been in both), 16 French, 15 Indian, 4 Spanish, 159 Italian, 41 Chinese, 5 African, and 25 Japanese-Sushi restaurants (according to ask4food.gr).

Life in the cities is quite stimulating, isn’t it?

References

Knox, Paul. Urban Social Geography. An Introduction. Third Edition. 1995. Essex: Longman. 158-159.

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The city now and then

Whenever I go to the country I feel I somehow miss the city. The city has so much to offer. It is a pity that we all seem to hate the city. 

The night before I left for the country I was looking at a very interesting book, Paul Knox’s Urban Social Geography, reading about the attitudes of people towards the city.

People generally believe that they would live better in the country than in the city. Nevertheless, there was something that brought them to the city in the first place.

Do people really ignore the opportunities that exist in cities? Knox mentions Baudelaire, pointing out that the diversity people experience in the city can lead to change in a cultural way. Remember how important the cities have been throughout history when it comes to cultural change: it is precisely because cities embrace difference; it’s in the cities that we have the chance to meet new people every day.

How important cultural change is, and yet we forget. Nothing can easily begin in the country. Everything begins in the cities. Everything began in the ancient ones. 

I visited Ancient Messene during my holidays. This is a highly preserved site of the ancient city, with a complete stadium, various temples, and a theatre. Crammed up, this little ‘city centre’ evoked the lost era very clearly, and at the same time it was relatively easy for me to picture exactly how life could have been there.

It was the epitome of city ruins, to me. Not segmented like ancient Athens. It is all there for us to see…

References 

Knox, Paul. Urban Social Geography. An Introduction. Third Edition. 1995. Essex: Longman.

Thanks very much for reading.

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