I start my Athens experience with a snack at a restaurant in the Monastiraki district. The waiter denies me the moussaka I had been looking forward to all night, but recommends a ‘special kebab’. Although kebab as I know it has never really been my cup of tea, I struggled saying no to the insisting young man and decided to give it a try. What I receive is a small plate onto which a pancake, four sausage lookalikes and two beautifully grilled tomatoes had been piled up. The experience didn’t just rock my kebab-related vocabulary, it also took out all prejudice toward what I what I previously thought of as being mere fast-food.
After a surprisingly good night’s sleep right next to Podos Athinas, a street in central Athens that must see thousands of cars, pick-up trucks and taxis every hour of the day and night, I set off for the tourist office. My freshly bought Lonely Planet guide to Greek islands holds a modest section on what to see’s and what to do’s in Athens, edition of 2008. The map detail included tells me the tourist office sits somewhere in a pedestrian zone of central Athens. After four tours around the block, I give up and decided to ask a couple of newspaper agents to help me out. To their understanding, tourist office is an equivalent term to travel agent and so yet again I was in for a bit of a detour.
A good half a day later and finally equipped with that great trophy of a free Athens street map, I head to the main sights. One of the first customs I am greeted by is the change of the guard at the presidential residence. With white tights, a blue skirt and pompoms on the tips of their shoes that are completely out of proportion, these poor men are a real tourist attraction. And that’s without mentioning the highly peculiar way of marching they have. Whenever a supervising general, police post or barracks are near they adopt the most ridiculous marching style imaginable. The left leg is lifted high up in the air in some sort of prima ballerina show-off manner while they continue using the right leg as normally. The result is a very asymmetrical performance that you just cannot watch without lifting you mouth ends into a I-know-I-should-be-serious-but-this-is-just-hilarious kind of smile.
The presidential guard at work
The fact that Athens is full of historical heritage obviously goes without saying. One can barely finish walking along a street without having come across some sort of ancient remains, although very few are still somewhere near as beautiful now as they used to be back in the times. In fact, seeing all these renowned historic sites with their withered marble and fallen pillars just makes you feel more sorry for the loss of glory than happy about the pieces of sandstone that managed to persevere through time. There’s just so much of it that the untrained eye fully relies on sign posts and guide maps to distinguish between architectural richness and utter rubble. The locals however, seem pretty used to the all-overness of potentially valuable pieces of rock and other whatnots. At one point for instance, I saw two men preparing a site in central Athens for development, throwing pieces of typical Greek pottery onto a heap on the side after having dug them out with what looked like standard gardening tools. Not too sure what the National Archaeological Service would say about this...
Remains of the temple to Olympian Zeus or Greek Jenga as I like to call it
[to be continued]
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