I Went to Athens and…
It’s a quip that has stuck in my memory. The great American comedian WC Fields: “Last week, I went to Philadelphia. It was closed”. An elegant but doubtless completely unfair barb. Of course, I’d never reach for that jibe to describe my actual experience…
This month (May 2024) I went to Athens. I had not been since one day in 1980. On the way to a stay on the island of Alonissos (in the Aegean Sporades), the plan was to spend a couple of nights in Athens and day-trip the Parthenon (again, after 44 years).
It started well. There’s a hotel offering modest rooms but a sensational roof terrace bistro. Arriving late in the evening we were looking out to the illuminated heights of the Acropolis. A fantastic visual appetiser for the next day’s exploration.
In the morning we set off on foot. Central Athens, apart from a few big squares and wide boulevards, is a city of undulating, crooked and narrow streets. Some are pedestrianised, given over to tourist ambling, and some dedicated to taxi rat runs.
For the novice foot traveller, orientation is not easy but wandering, hopefully not too erratically, is pleasant.
Our first stop was to be the Acropolis Museum, to learn the basics and more before tackling the vast site itself. We wended our way, with a few false turnings. Then, the Museum was, large and modern…and CLOSED. Google, hastily consulted, insisted that it was open. Google was refuted by the fact.
So, nothing for it, on to the Acropolis itself. A few steps away from the closed Museum there’s an entrance- not the main one. It was CLOSED. No explanation given. Google again insisted that the site was open.
We decided to walk round the base of the great rock, thereby reaching the main entrance, although now fearing the worst. The worst was confirmed – CLOSED- Again, no notice.
We tramped round, admiring the changing view upwards- like failing trumpeters round the walls of Jericho. There was obviously some reason for the closures but we couldn’t discover it. It was the Tuesday after the Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday. Easter Monday was indeed a holiday; but not, according to all the calendars, the Tuesday.
A last throw of the tourist dice. We would try the Archaeological Museum , 1 ½ kilometres to the north. Google said it would open at 1400. Could Google be third time right?
Navigating the way on foot meant descending, from the path around the final eminence of the Acropolis, the steep, stepped and narrow alleys to the north.
They are crowded to the point of impassibility by restaurants. Then we followed wider modern avenues (passed closed shops, including Marks & Spencers).
On our trek we came across an archaeological site about a kilometre north of the Acropolis. It’s not especially grand: a stretch of ancient road just outside a now lost City gate. But the distance from centre of ancient Athens told us something of the ancient city’s size – considerable.
We reached the Museum at opening time (according to Google). It was CLOSED for the day. Finally, however, there was a (handwritten) notice to that effect.
We turned towards the region of our hotel, and perhaps an early supper at a recommended restaurant in a secluded square.
We found the square and the restaurant. It was CLOSED. Fortunately, its neighbour in the square was OPEN – and perfectly acceptable.
It was here that the friendly waiters explained the day of closures. May Day, 1st May, the workers’ holiday, had this year fallen in the Greek Orthodox Holy Week. To avoid conflict between the secular and sacred, the Greek Government had decreed that the 1st May holiday be “transposed” – to our day (7th May) of frustrated tourism. (Keep up, Google.)
We went back to the hotel’s rooftop, and again admired the profile of the Acropolis, and a magnificent sunset.
Next morning, we left for the Sporades, on a small propeller plane.
Behind us, Athens was now OPEN again.
May 2024
