Athens, timeless, crackling and hot under Athena’s dream gaze, is full of things beautiful and half-broken – but it is rarely full of itself. The emblem of this city is the Parthenon, the goddess’ temple, which seems almost as old as the stars but is, in fact, ageless. How mightily it stands, despite the inevitable nicks in the pillars over there, the scars from purloined friezes up there. If we had one of these in America, instead of so many of those quasi-earnest facsimiles that are supposed to impart faith in institutions that almost ritually come up short, it’d be both revelation and Internet breaker. 

But here? Nah, Athenians have too many deals to close or chef-driven restaurants to investigate or postcard islands to dash off to for long weekends. The feats and glories of antiquity are, if not for the birds, then definitely (or at least mostly) for the tourists, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

“Honestly, man,” a taxi driver confessed to me recently, “I was – come on, m*l*ka bus, move it! – I was born and raised in this city, and I’ve never even been up there.”

There, of course, refers to that most unlikely of ancient-modern skyscrapers, the Acropolis, looming 500 feet or so (more if you count Athena’s temple) above the urban fray. Not as tall as the Eiffel Tower, but packing a significantly larger punch in terms of civilizational consequence. The Greeks have always, and rightly, revered it, their nation’s “sacred rock”, but it’s the tourists and cruise ship day-trippers who do most of the worshiping, so to speak. They clamber up it for their selfies and TikToks with such persistence and alacrity that from a distance the place can sometimes resemble a magnificent if improbable anthill. From the base of those storied and still somewhat mysterious slopes the real and modern Athens – messy, noisy, earthy and anti-ethereal – spills out in all directions, from the ring of mountains in the north to the Mediterranean’s edge, at the suitably proud and also often very loud port of Piraeus. 

Greatness and Greekness

Of all the great cities in Europe, I can think of no other that is as roundly misunderstood and underestimated as Athens. Paris was for Hemingway a “moveable feast,” and it still is, but ancient chops and modern swagger lend to Athens an additional quality you might call symphonic (though with no shortage of feasting options). What of Rome? As impressive, but also as comprehensible as Chicago, so fixated on material things were those ancient Tiber-side denizens. I hesitate to say that Athens is underrated, because that would almost too easily validate my thesis, namely that the Greek capital is – as far the European continent goes, at least – the last refuge of the dislocated hip. But even if that holds true today, as I suspect it does, it’s a state of affairs that will not last forever.

For the moment, though, the cool and stealthy winds of hipsterdom prevail and frankly, what do ancient ruins have to do with it? Not nearly as much as those cool corner bars in Neos Kosmos and unvarnished kafeneios everywhere, or the pop-up bakeries of Pangrati, or the hotels of repute both high and mighty, where 20 euros in the gourmet restaurant might get you a single Naxos baked potato (but a darned good one), and lowdown and dirty, where randy visitors of possibly Balkan provenance may find that 20 euros don’t go as far as several hundred drachmas presumably used to. 

Up in Kolonaki, you’ll find trendy bars, slick-as-molasses art galleries and streets reminiscent of those in certain Parisian arrondissements, with that requisite mix of high price tags and silky grayish gloom. Just beyond those high-falutin’ thoroughfares, though, there is Exarcheia, a gritty downtown neighborhood with genuine anarchist vibes and aging neoclassical buildings that have mostly resisted gentrification, some punched up with vivid murals and wild-at-heart street art. The atmosphere swings between bubbly and brooding as you stumble upon bars and cafés with names such as “Revolt,” “Buy or Die” and “Don’t Be A Dick.”

Athens is not a shopping city; there’s London for that. Berlin? Sigh…I heard there’s a big colony of Israelis there, which strikes me as slightly predatory (nothing against Tel Aviv, but that city’s signature ebullience is non-transferable). Prague? Pretty and hot for a minute in the mid-1990s but now, well, you know … Prague.

The Greek capital is a city in motion; here the traffic is combat – think Athens vs. Sparta testosterone at any given hour of the day or night – the drivers are Greek, and in a much bigger hurry than you are – out of the way, please! But for the seasoned post-Parisian flâneur, Athens is, on a good day, still one thrilling and marvelous asphalt trip, even if the sidewalks are terrifyingly uneven. What, did you think this was squeaky-clean Helsinki or something? 

As with a handful of other truly great cities, it is after you get yourself to this one that the real traveling begins. Whether you make the ancient monuments such as the Parthenon and classic neighborhoods like Plaka your urban anchors or are completely oblivious to them in your explorations, walking around Athens (regardless of the hour) rarely feels formulaic – in fact, it often feels like you’re on the cusp of unadulterated urban adventure, even if it’s going to be a mostly imagined one. 

After all, Athens is fertile country for the imagination, is it not? It’s a hero-created city, where the ghosts of Pericles and Themistocles join the pantheon of ancient gods whose spirits can still be sensed above the din of the traffic jams in the green crannies of the Agora and Kerameikos. What a wonder and a marvel that a city of so many ribboned millennia of dead will feel to you so alive, sometimes achingly so, because eventually you’ll realize that you simply won’t be able to see or do it all, that the moment is all you have and, frankly, do you need much more? There will also be moments when the music stops and the check comes to the table, but don’t worry, any gaps in the great rhythm are only temporary.

Athens doesn’t necessarily feel as pregnant with possibility as does, say, New York; the energy is different. It’s a concentration of something unclassifiable that pulsates outward, not like the energy that flows into New York from all the different people who come to it. There’s the whoosh of commerce, alright, and, despite the fact that Greeks don’t talk about money like Americans do, there’s a lot of lucre that moves through this capital city on a daily basis. There’s culture, too; the arts have a strong presence here in which the great museums play an integral but not exclusive part. 

There are fish markets adorned with seahorse-shaped signs next to fruit vendors and nut shops and spice shops with pastourma (camel-meat pastrami) behind the counter and Arcadian sausages dangling from the ceiling, and everywhere food, food galore, to say nothing of the loud chatter regarding Athenian and Greek politics, a subject which not even the most astute correspondent could ever figure out, and taxi strikes, and side streets where ladies with certain skill sets still ply their trade, and … Yes, Athens is the ultimate mash-up – lush hillsides such as Filopappou, where tortoises roam; traces of ancient walls, including many in sea-proud Piraeus, with aromas from around the world wafting about its storied harbors; and everywhere in between concrete apartment buildings.

There is, in Athens, that most mysterious of metropolitan elixirs; if pressed, I’d have to say that it might not be energy at all, but rather the quiet exultation of intrigue; you’re never going to identify the DNA of this place, so don’t even try, or, at least, don’t try too hard. Better to eat, drink and drift. Order another drink and lasso a friend, then drift some more. That’s when the music really starts and the magic happens – just be sure to look out for that garbage truck, and please don’t trip.

Unfamiliar Ηaunts

Any great city is invariably defined by what came before. That is, after all, why it’s still here. Drop into the archaeological site of Kerameikos, framed by the Acropolis just behind it and famed as the necropolis of ancient Athens. It’s the perfect spot for a meandering urban journey at twilight. There you’ll find the ghosts of hoplite warriors, proud fathers and distraught mothers of yore, and the phantom growls of the old Molossian hounds. You’ll feel them, maybe, but certainly they will come to a kind of presque-vie as you glide by the ancient marble funerary monuments. Or as they glide by you? I don’t know, for it’s a kind of dulcet violet blur, along with the stony ruins of the ancient city walls, which are part of the same sprawling but somehow fairly obscure site. You’ll see more cute tortoises, these ones lumbering over the grooves in the broken stones to which once were fastened the hinges of the great Dipylon Gate. The Themistoclean walls, or what’s left of them, divide things into what was essentially ancient Athens’ bustling west side on one side and the city’s legendary burial ground on the other. The aura here, impossible to capture on Instagram or what have you, is unique in the world.

Kerameikos was also, as its name indicates, the ancient ceramics quarter, and there’s a small museum with some fine specimens of black figure vases and other exquisitely preserved ancient vessels. You’ll find lots more of those in the National Archaeological Museum, but the juxtaposition of the small museum here with the natural setting is something that is profoundly Athenian, even more so than haggling for leather sandals or a replica bust of Aphrodite in the famous and always fun flea market nearby.

When you go to buy something in Athens, you agorázete it — the verb to buy literally has its roots in the ancient world’s preeminent marketplace, the Agora, which sits just northwest of the Acropolis. Commerce and trade, then as today mostly by sea, were always twin pillars of the ancient Athenian success story. Yes, in the ruins of the Agora you’ll be standing where Pericles orated, or maybe where Plato imparted his wisdom to eager students, and, with a little imagination, that can be strong stuff. After all, without the singular exuberance of the Athenian mind, where or what would America or the rest of Europe be today? It’s almost too unsettling to contemplate. 

How should one approach Athens? It may very well be that when you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love, but for the visitor to Athens caught between the bright sun and the city, the best bet might be to simply continue wandering. 

That’s when the secrets seep in. The roar of traffic alternates with hidden lanes and concealed courtyards where stealthy silence prevails. There’s a symphony of scents – admittedly, not always heavenly, but always supremely metropolitan – perhaps in the form of the aroma of cardamom from the spice emporia that line the sidewalks of Evripidou Street, or the aroma of Greek coffee, and there are unexpected sights, such as the dazzlingly green-feathered parrots darting above your head as you make your way across the National Garden.

Did I mention the radiant light of Attica that, on any given day, shines somewhere between New England autumn awesome and epic Homeric bright on the magnificence meter? There is, actually, no way to convey its clarity. Suffice it to say that it is heaven’s frame here, and it is everything.

There’s more. At its best, a plunge into the heart of modern Athens is like that moment toward the epic final scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the lid finally comes off the ark and divine spirits of myriad colors are released (and before things take a rapid dive south). Because this is another world – the foundation of almost every Western value we take for granted today: the birthplace of the whole gamut of fallible gods as well as the first pass at democracy; the incubator of irrepressible and once unclassifiable desires; and the province of incandescent gold-pink sunsets that reflect the shimmering surface of the mother of all seas. Never as polished as Paris, nor as monument-encrusted as Florence, Athens is still the city of cities, a quixotic and frenzied civilizational success story. Being here on vacation or for work means being, for a little while at least, part of a universal light that seems to be dimming in many quarters today.

So never mind the honking horns and fumes, and instead marvel at those ancient columns or that plucky feline who claims your taverna table as her or his own. Inhale the metropolitan zephyr that’s so redolent of orange blossom and expectation, and dream and dream! In Athens, it just may be that the gods are – beyond all their eternal sparring and intrigue – still on your side.