Memories and new discoveries

Walking down memory lane - that's what we did this morning. Took a bus for a change, because bus trips are more interesting than subway trips. The bus crossed several neighborhoods to the National Museum, the place we spent most of the time (besides the Acropolis) when we stayed in Athens during Archeology studies. We clearly remember the long days in this museum, studying each and every piece in detail, first time on an excursion in the early 1980ies. At the time, they still shut down the museum for a long lunch break, which was fine with us. Otherwise, our professor wouldn't have given us a break at all. The exhibition halls are unchanged, our footprints still visible on the floor,,, They just added, or rather rearranged, two new halls for special exhibitions, like currently one about Hadrian and another one about "Beauty and Body in Antique Times".

Head of a "kouros" (right) and one of the many Venuses (type "Louvre Naples") I did research on for my doctorate:

The special exhibition about Hadrian and the museum's courtyard:

Exarchia is the neighborhood around the museum and the Athens University (pic on the right), and, it was the area were the riots and demonstrations end of 2008 started. The neighborhood, which was always sort of anarchic and chaotic, suffered for many years and is still not the same as before, but - despite of holes on the walkway – there is hope,,,

Attica Center is one of the large shopping denters in town and they obviously try to compete with Macy's when it comes to window displays for Xmas. Traditionally, Greek Orthodox Christmas is celebrated in the night of January 1st with completely other traditions and rituals, but, seems like commerzialisation has striked. We not only discovered this crazy café-bar-restaurant in Psirri (pic below), over-boarding with decoration, reminding of Dyker Heights in NYC (which is certainly working well on Instagram!), but also (American) Christmas carols all over, while people are sitting outside enjoying their coffee or snack.

Contrast: Omonia Square - the people's square - is surrounded by more and more decaying historic buildings. What a pity! But, these huge representative buildings are much too expensive in the upkeep and renters are hard to find.

We continued to the City Hall (left) and the old Central Market, Dimotiki Agora, a huge central market hall with different sections (meats, fish and some tavernas), surrounded outside by shops/vendors of dry goods, nuts, herbs, spices and such. On the square in front of the hall there is an open-air-market with fruit/veggies and olives (!) surrounded by little shops selling household items, groceries, oil and wine, cheeses and sausages. That's Old Athens, which has never changed! What a cornupia of Greek goods!

We decided to do the same thing we did as students: buy provisions on the market and have dinner in the room. We got Greek cheeses, grapes, fresh bread and retsina - and had a feast. It's still so inexpensive, that it seems unreal. A loaf of bread for 50 c., 3 kilo of clementines for 1 Euro, excellent cheese for 10 Euro/kilo, a liter of wine for 3 Euro. Sometimes you almost wish, they would rise their prices for tourists and wealthy people, but the high unemployment and poverty rates explain why groceries (and, even restaurant meals) are still more very affordable.

The further away from the market we got on Odos Aiolou, the fancier it became and there were creative little restaurants of all kind, with outdoor seating and very inviting (and crowded). We had loukoumades (sort of freshly baked firm donut balls) with honey and cinnamon as a little "pick-me-up" in one of the new stores there, before we checked out a couple more shops and restaurants in Psirri and the Plaka and watched the cats (in the old times it was big stray dog populations as well).

Along Athens' famous shopping mall Odos Ermou - often compared to Via Veneto, 5th Ave or Champs Elysées - we slowly walked back to Syntagma Square and the subway station.