When last we spoke we were in Crete, which I think you’ll agree speaks very highly of us. Well, me, really. Dazzled as I was by the magic of the Aegean Sea, one thought had fluttered around my heart for days, like that feeling you get just before they announce an award. Every sculpture I saw, every ruin I visited and every amphora I didn’t break reminded me that I would eventually be in the capital of Western civilisation and my last stop on my Greek adventure: Athens.
This has been a long time in the making. Long. Time. Most people told me that Athens should be the shortest part of my time in Greece, adding that it was dusty, chaotic and ‘doable in under three days’. These people and I now don’t talk because Athens is by far one of the nicest cities I have been to. I was staying in a small hotel in the old (‘old’ here means 3 millennia min) city center in an area called Plaka, a neighborhood as beautiful as it is central. In the taxi to the hotel I craned my neck constantly, trying to sneak a peak of the Parthenon sitting regally on top of the hill of the Acropolis but I couldn’t see it. So I made do with things like the Agora and Hadrian’s arch.
Just off a morning flight, tired and grumpy, I dropped my bags on the bed and flung open the drapes dramatically. And to my utter surprise, there she was. Just sitting there, on top of a hill, the most majestic, beautiful, and elegant ruin I have ever seen. The Acropolis.
Everywhere has a Hipster neighborhood, which I think should be marked with a biohazard sign with skinny jeans on it
Seeing it perked me up immediately and since it was only morning, I rushed right to it. You enter at the base of a small hill, and can choose several paths to walk up. The climb takes only about ten minutes, weaving along old flat stones and overgrown cypress trees and on the way every view is scenic and overwhelming. Turn a corner and you’ll see a glimpse of the Temple of Athena Nika; duck under a branch and you’ll see the top of the Parthenon pediment against a clear blue sky.
Eventually the various routes cluster and after some upward zigzagging (and a ticket counter) you reach the elegant columns of the ancient Propyla, the entrance hall. And then almost before you can prepare yourself, there it is, sitting at an angle against a perfect sky - looking both exactly like and completely dissimilar to every postcard of it you have ever seen. I stopped dead in my tracks at the first sight of the Parthenon and I am not ashamed to admit that I began to tear up. It took me a while to compose myself and actually walk around the building. If it looks elegant in pictures, wait until you are standing beside it. The scale is not simply imposing, it’s beautiful. Even just the idea that I was in the vicinity of stones that had existed as a central part of humanity’s consciousness in this beautiful formation for thousands of years - surviving wars, armies, heretics, pagans, time - made me well up again every few steps.
In all the admiration for Greece's splendour from the Classical era, it is easy to overlook its magnificent Byzantine aesthetic and heritage
I was surprised to find that the place wasn’t as crowded as I had imagined. The building complex is on a rocky hill in the middle of Athens, built in ancient times so that everyone could see it as they entered the city. The result is that you feel like you are at the bottom of a bowl from where you can appreciate the whole of Athens in all her white-topped glory. I spent two hours at the Parthenon my first time, and returned every day that I was there because I was, admittedly, a hot mess throughout the first Parthenon visit.
The New Acropolis Museum is within minutes of the actual ruin, and it’s a truly remarkable building in and of itself, sleekly contemporary, with the best views of the acropolis hill. Here you can see the thousands of remnants that they have preserved from excavations on the site (that continue to be fruitful) and it’s the only place in the world you can see the Parthenon sculptural decorations - like the frieze and pediments - in the same proportions as that of the building they graced while actually looking at the building in the distance (more crying).
I have friends in Athens and evenings were spent trying out the fantastic restaurants the city has to offer. Most of the more touristy places are around the center and offer nighttime views of the Acropolis (also breathtaking, I cried some more) and so I tried to see as many different neighborhoods as I could to get a feel for the actual city and to stop my tear ducts.
You can tell that the Greeks are suffering financial crises once you leave the center. Many of the buildings are empty, the shops are shuttered,the graffiti on the walls is anrgy and there is a general air of gloom the further out you go, which turns to self-conscious anarchy in the more hipster neighborhoods (I’ve learned everywhere has a Hipster neighborhood, which I think should be marked with a biohazard sign with skinny jeans on it).
I went to the main Greek archeological museum, home to the most famous sculptures that have been discovered in Greece that the Brits don’t have. Despite its treasure, it is slightly rundown, which is completely unlike my favorite museum in Athens, the Byzantine Museum. As in love as I am with Classical Greece, I am almost equally enamored of the gold-loving, deeply opulent Byzantine side of the culture. This is what draws me to Venice - and I suspect - Marrakesh as cities, because the Byzantine aesthetic lives in Islamic art as much as it does in Christendom. The museum itself is very expensive-looking, with new displays and climate-controlled, dimly lit halls to protect the many manuscripts and objects they have on display. It is wonderfully curated and I didn’t see a single tourist when I was there. I also went to a modernist artist’s house that now serves as a museum to the 1960s Greek modernist movement, contemporary to our Shakir Ali Museum in a way, but with way more stuff.
This last place stayed with me, mainly because it showed an insight into the contemporary Greek art movement, one that is as bogged down by the weight of its own epic history as it is inspired by it. It’s the same feeling I get when I see some of the more modern movements in Italy or India - the feeling that suggests that because there is a giant past to live up to, newer movements have a harder time feeling unselfconscious. Perhaps that’s why Pakistani art flourishes as it does, because we have to keep reminding other people that although the history of our land goes back thousands of years, the history of the name Pakistan does not.
Anyway. I so wish I could tell you more about the trip; show you every picture, recount every conversation and share with you every memory but suffice it to say that I am in love with it. Utterly, hopelessly and classically in love. And I will return.
