Category: Culture

When Athens suddenly found itself the capital of Greece, Greece scrambled to build institutional buildings worthy of a capital. That means a lot of temporary accommodation until the buildings were ready. This originally Ottoman building had been remodelled into an architectural office in 1831. (And the two architects who set up shop there, Stamatis Kleanthis […]

I was heading up into Anafiotika, the Greek island village perched up against the Acropolis. (Literally a Greek island village—it was settled by builders who moved here from the island of Anafi, in the early building spurt of Athens.) However I got distracted by the topical presence of St Nicholas of Rangavas (the altar girl […]

Across the road from Hadrian’s Gate, Plaka starts, the old town of Athens. When not overflowing with tourists and tourist tat, it is still charming—especially in contrast to the 20th century buildings of the centre. Walk up a bit, following the instructions of Lonely Planet’s Walking Tour, and you come across the 11th century church […]

Hadrian’s gate, in front of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, a monument by a grateful city to the emperor that rebuilt her. Hence the inscription on either side of the gate, in elegant Greek capitals that I can just about convince myself I can read on the Temple-facing side: Facing the old Athens of the […]

The Temple of Olympian Zeus was supposed to be the biggest Ancient Greek temple ever: it took 600 years to build, and was ruined in a barbarian raid a century later. What remains of it are a seventh of its columns, most of them now in scaffolding. The columns tower over the highway right next […]

The Zappeion, Zappas Hall, Athens Exhibition Centre, is not named for Frank Zappa, but for national benefactors Evangelos and Konstantinos Zappas. (The cousins were from what is now Southern Albania, and their surname is Zhapa in Albanian; so the similarity with Frank is coincidental.) The gardens of the Zappeion were a gay beat, which made […]

The Greek Parliament. It started life out as the royal palace, and it is a stately, reassuring presence in the city, even if it attracts permanent aggravation from its citizenry. In theory, the central point of Athens is the square that Parliament faces, Syntagma (Constitution Square, because King Otto was forced at gunpoint to adopt […]

It’s Summer in Athens! And Summer in Athens, and indeed all over Greece, means lots of cultural events. (I’m likely to switch back to coming here in winter in future, as less disruptive for work. And there is a lot less of this in winter.) And there’s lots of music concerts, like in the Anglosphere. […]

Oh. New Kazantzakis novel out, “The Ascent”; he chose not to publish it while alive. I noticed it in bookshops while in Sitia. Just from the blurb, I recognised its heroes as minor characters retreaded in Captain Michalis: the author stand-in, Kosmas, and his Jewish wife, Naomi. What he was trying to do in this […]

I found I’ve already written a more extensive version of “Athens, 2023” on Facebook. So: I did my walking tour of Central Athens on June 17 (and at the end of it, left my Lonely Planet in the last venue I visited). Before I go on: Things I like about Central Athens: The surviving book […]