Wednesday Athens Update
Wandering the streets of Athens today, your trusty correspondent's first impressions include the following: the cleanliness of the air, the ubiquity of cafés, and the understated funkiness of one `hood, quiet Koukaki.
Wasn't Athens the city old hippies refused to spend time in on their way to one or another debauched sun-soaked island on grounds that the pollution was too bad? Tuesday in Athens was so gorgeous it hurt, in the seventies with a light breeze, and very little evident chemical pollution. What gives?
Before the Olympics, the then-Greek Ambassador to the United States, George V. Savvaides claimed that a number of infrastructural changes made in preparation for the Olympics (along with cleaner gasoline and increased local usage of public transportation) reduced pollution in Athens by 30%.
Cafés are full of twentysomething hipsters projecting aloofness, their fiftysomething mothers with lashings of make-up, and seventysomething old men grouped around tables, kvetching and chatting. Oddly enough, the coffee drink of choice in Athens appears to be a Nescafé creation known as a freddo. The milk used in the freddo tastes like the condensed variety, and the drink is typically served quite sweet. Request little or no sugar unless you like your coffee to taste like candy.
Koukaki, to the south of Filopappou Hill and a stone's throw from central tourist `hood Plaka, features an inviting pedestrian-only street named Drakou. The apartment buildings lining Drakou are utilitarian-modernist, with little balconies shuttered during the day. Wild foliage, including palm trees, populate the street's garden strip. More cafés than can be counted cluster at street level. Koukaki is the ideal sleepy `hood.
Leave a Comment
Not yet a member? Click here to become a member.
Already a member? Login below: