Athens on Location

by Clio

There are two Athens in my life.

I love them both.

One exists in the world of my imagination here at Pan.

The other exists in Greece. Sometimes I wonder if that Athens is also a product of my imagination.

Athens was the first European city that I ventured to on my own where I didn’t know the language—other than my stock phrases of hello, goodbye, please, thank you and how much. I had worked in Europe, lived in Europe, travelled in Europe, but Greece was a totally new experience, and Athens was my introduction to Greece.

My first entrance into Athens was by taxi. Anyone going to that city needs to know that Athenian taxi drivers are crazy—a wonderful crazy, but crazy. I have had taxi drivers refuse to take me places in the city—not slummy areas, but to areas where posh hotels are. As the taxi driver said, “it wasn’t on his way home”. That first taxi ride careened me through traffic, and I got the impression that traffic lights and signs were more suggestions than anything else. Speed limits were for wimps. At times I felt that the driver was spending more time turned around looking at me than looking at the road. Even if he was looking at the road, the windshield was covered by pendants, and fringe and all sorts of miscellaneous decorations which had to impede visibility. 

We raced through crowded streets lined with non-descript architecture in the blazing heat of a late summer afternoon, and then it happened. We rounded a corner, and there it was.

For years I had been taught, and had taught, that the Acropolis was a rocky outcropping in the city. Yet, no lecture, no picture, no TV documentary had ever prepared me for the reality. It is magical. It is the Acropolis.

In the days that followed I climbed to the top of the Acropolis many times studying the buildings and looking out over the city. I did the same thing on each of the other trips I have taken to Athens. I never get tired of the view, although the climb never gets easier.

That first sight of the Acropolis began what is now almost 20 year long love affair with Athens. Yes, it is a city of traffic. It is not the cleanest city. Yet, it is a city whose streets I have walked and explored until my blisters had blisters. It is a city where I once spent 2 hours at midday sitting in an outdoor café. I had ordered a pitcher of pure lemon juice, a container of water and sugar, and mixed my own lemonade. The cost was perhaps $4, and I had to go searching for someone when I wanted to pay the bill. No one hovered trying to get me to leave or even order more. I was just allowed to enjoy the day, the view, the lemonade.

Athens is a city where time can move slowly. It is a city where I have always felt incredibly safe—even when walking at night. Children play and grandmothers sit in doorways until late, community and family spill out of houses and into the street embracing the lone tourist wandering the roads.

When I leave Athens I always wonder if my memories have somehow been retouched, muted and that my recall of the city is somehow skewed. When I return, I find that I fall in love with the city all over again. Athens is a city in which, despite the smog and crowds of tourists, I can find peace and touch the past. It is a place where I who has not one known drop of Greek blood in my heritage always feel at home.

The list of places to see and do in Athens can be found on many websites and in hundreds of tour books-- The Acropolis, the National Archaeological Museum, the Plaka, the new subway system, the old Olympic Stadium. It is a city whose museums are filled with wonders from all over Greece—the remains of excavations in Mycenea, the frescos from Santorini (Akrotiri) as well as statues we have all seen in art history books. In Athens you can visit the Agora and walk in the footsteps of Socrates and Plato. You can get caught up in the tourist mania of the Plaka and fill your arms with tee shirts, sandals and Bouzouki music. Yet, when you go there, spend time walking the streets, explore the small parks where Greek families sit and talk, and visit the small local restaurants. Athens is old and new, peaceful and frantic. Athens is, well, Athens.

When I can’t fly off to Greece, I try to bring my love for that city to the novel Athens, here at Pan. Like the city it is named after, the novel is old—it arrived from those old AS days. It is also new, because new stories are always being created by a very talented group of writers. At times the novel is peaceful, but there are also moments where it is frantic. It too is just Athens.

Both of these Athens are always in my heart.

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