athens

It was during the two minutes that I walked alone, regarding the last few remnants of the Parthenon frieze and sculptures in the new Acropolis museum while Steve packed up the kids, that the tears started. I looked at those old, beautiful reliefs that I knew so well, though I had never before seen them outside of a book, heroes and maidens of the ancient Greeks, and felt such awe that I could be there, that I could introduce my daughter to them at the tender age of six. Later that afternoon, we stood at the Acropolis itself.  Our doubts at the no stroller sign quickly dissipated as we watched Townes scramble up the old stone steps in the mountainside, happy for the freedom.  At the top, in the shade of magnificent columns and pediments, I feasted for a long while on the sight of the caryatids of the porch on the Erechtheion, beautiful ladies that I had studied so often as a student of the humanities at university, while Townes collected rocks and asked his daddy about the huge crane that was enabling restoration work on the Parthenon, and Violette gathered flowers. I looked at them and all around us, and again, tears. An afternoon could not be more idyllic.

Athens treated us so well, with big breakfasts at the hotel and homey Greek dinners out, strangers asking the children's names (Thomas and Violetta, they were soon responding loudly to any question, whether or not that was the answer) and spoiling them with treats and attention. We found the Athenians to be well-educated and very chic, though we laughed at the down coats and layers of sweaters they wore on what, to us, felt like warm spring days. We shopped and went to the cafe for baclava and deep, rich hot chocolate. We had sandals made and swam in the salt water pool in the hotel next door to ours. We marveled at the marble everywhere we looked, dictating a beautiful blue, grey, beige, and pink palette for the city. It was a lovely holiday.

After a few days, though, signs of unrest amongst poor Athenians due to the ongoing economic crisis became more obvious to us: the demonstration of a few hundred, perhaps thousand, unemployed men marching past our hotel on Syntagma Square, the blockade of buses in front of the Parliamentary building and dozens of swat teams during a meeting regarding the EU, the angry--though very cool--graffiti that covered every wall and most buildings, from Sephora to the townhouses abutting the Acropolis. Stray dogs lay about town squares and sometimes in the middle of busy streets, and there were kittens in every bush and alley, much to the delight of our children. Menus and boutique windows offered new, lower prices. Great for tourists, but so sad to see a place with such dignity and history struggling. Oh, Athens.