Autumn In Athens 2022 (Part 2)

Emerging from the Monasteraki metro station (Samsung phone file)

Let's continue wandering the Pláka on a cheerful and hot day in October. What happened to winter?

Mrs. Popi's store

I first met Mrs. Popi in the 1980s. She has run this souvenir store forever. Her grandkids (?), who go to college in the USA, work here in the summers. They told me that Mrs. Popi is now 101 years old and stays home and cooks. Years ago, I bought a brass lion door knocker from her. But we never used it because our door at home has a glass panel and there was no place to mount the lion.

The Pláka district has 10s of stores like this selling tourist goods. We have wool hangings at home that we bought years ago. 

Monasteraki Square, always crowded (Acros film, Leica M2)

Alley off Monasteraki Square (Samsung phone file)

Flea market, 2011 (Panasonic G1 digital file)

Monasteraki is the flea market / traditional downtown district of Athens. It is nestled under the walls of the Acropolis and is a popular tourist destination. The flea market was once really that, but today much of the merchandise is Chinese budget stuff.

Heading north on Athenas Street, you pass by small side streets and lanes with a mixture of traditional 2-story houses and modern concrete boxes. It is sad that Athens let so much of its traditional late-1800s architecture get replaced with nondescript post-war budget concrete boxes.

Time for some Levis on Vissis Street (50mm Summicron lens)

Soukratos Street (50mm Summicron lens)

Pigeon house, Athenas Street (25mm Color-Skopar lens)

Keep walking north on Athenas Street and you soon reach the Central Market. This is a fun place to explore and is a popular tourist site. Buy some spices or nuts, fish, cow, sardines, bread, oil, or coffee. And stop and have lunch one of the small restaurants. I have written about the Central Market before several times. It's worth a visit every trip to Athens.

Heady experience (Samsung phone digital file)

Central Market in 1951, when it was a bit more earthy

The end of Athenas Street where it meets Omonoia Square, 1951

This ends our walk from Monasteraki Square to Omonoia Square. Here you can catch the metro and head home or to your hotel. Thank you for joining on this walk.

Autumn in Athens 2022 (Part 1)

2022 Note

Likavitou Hill from the Alexandros Soutsos Museum

Greece had a warm autumn in 2022 with benign weather. Tourism had plunged in 2020 when the pandemic shut down most leisure travel around the world, but it picked up with a vengeance in 2022. People were thrilled to be traveling again. Tourists were swarming all over Athens and the islands. My relatives were surprised because usually the tourists start to disappear by mid-October. But for 2022, local merchants and restauranteurs were thrilled. Hotels were heavily booked. The islands were swarming. I heard several times that merchants were very pleased with American tourists because they spent a lot of money, were especially friendly, and did not seem to care about prices. Hmmm.....

First Cemetery

First Cemetery (2018 photograph)

First Cemetery is the resting place for generations of prominent Athenians. It is an oasis of gracious trees and green in the urban jungle. Melina Mercouri and Heinrich Schliemann reside here. Some older photographs are here. It is off the usual tourist route but worth a visit. 

Protest apartment, Leof. Alexandros (Samsung phone snapshot)

Anafiotica and the Pláka

Likavitou Hill from Anafiotica (35mm ƒ/2 Summicron, deep yellow filter)

Tucked under and around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis is the Pláka, the historical neighborhood of Athens occupied since the medieval era and, probably, since antiquity. The labyrinthine streets twist and turn past little houses. You could almost be in a village in the mountains. Well, except for the drone of traffic in the distance. And the different languages of the tourists. Every time I visit Athens, I take my obligatory walk through the Pláka, look at the scenery, take some photographs, eat a hearty lunch, and ponder the passage of history.

I have photographed here before, but each time I visit Athens, I can't resist doing it all over again. Here are some samples from October of 2022. 

Balcony, Thrassiliou

Stairway to ? (25mm ƒ/4 Color-Skopar lens)

Cottage courtyard (25mm Color-Skopar lens)

Where are my customers? Aretousas Street (25mm Color-Skopar lens)

Here's looking at you, Graffiti Alley

I took most of these photographs with Fuji Acros film using my Leica M2 camera and various lenses. Praus Productions in Rochester, NY, developed the film.

In the Heat of the Day: Summer in Athens (Greece 2019-04)

Athens from Anafiotica, view northwest (Leica 50mm Summicron lens, polarizing filter)

Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high

Summer in Athens qualifies as easy living, although there is no cotton as in DuBose Heyward's and George Gershwin's famous lyrics. Summer in Greece means tourists, open-air restaurants, the sea, coffeeshops, and sunshine. Athens can be blazing hot, and I recall July days when the mercury reached 42° C (108° F). Ouch. But August of 2019 was pretty benign, and with the low humidity, it was comfortable. To escape the heat, you can stop for a cool drink almost anywhere or duck into a shop with air conditioning. As usual, when I visit Athens, I take a quick stroll around the Acropolis and through the Pláka. Here are some black and white frames from my last trip; maybe you can appreciate the summer vibe.

Walking towards the Pláka from the Acropolis Museam, you pass narrow streets, looking like they came from an earlier era. The entry to the Acropolis itself is mobbed with tourist groups, especially hoards of Chinese visitors. Thirty years ago, it was Japanese tourists. In the 1950s, it was Americans. Where do Americans travel now? Do they just take soft and air conditioned river cruises?

Creative graffiti. See my previous article for a color view of this alley.

The Anafiotica District is the cluster of tiny island-like houses clustered beneath the limestone massif of the Acropolis. I posted color pictures of this area in article Greece 2019-02.

Temple of the Winds with Mount Lycabettus in the distance, 2019

Temple of the winds, 1951, Canon rangefinder camera, 50mm ƒ/1.9 Serenar lens

Descending to the north from the Anafiotica area, you pass through narrow streets with souvenir shops and archaeological sites.

Souvenir shops abound. I stepped into one and spoke with some college students from the USA, who spend the summer tending the shop with their grandmother, Mrs. Popi. They let me sit while I changed film in my camera.

Electric scooters have come to Athens (Moto G5 digital file)

Monasteraki is a busy and popular plaza a short distance north of the Acropolis. The entrance to the Athens Flea is marked with a modern sign. In the 1950s, the Flea Market really had old machines, metal, and household junk. Now much of the merchandise is commercial and brand new. My dad took pictures in the Market in 1951, and I wrote about the Flea Market in 2013. Warning, Monasteraki is crowded; beware of pickpockets.

Walk north on Athenas Street, and you see snack bars, coffee shops, hardware and electrical vendors, luggage, plumbing, ecclesiastical supplies, and just about anything else. It is safe for tourists, just watch out and beware of traffic. It is an acoustic and visual overload.

Nut and dry fruit stand, Central Market, Athens Street, Athens (Acros film, Leica M2 camera)

Fresh grilled sardines, Central Market, Athens (Moto G5 digital file)

The Central Market is always fun. Buy some spices, nuts, and Greek coffee. And have a meal in one of the tiny tavernas tucked into the side alleys. The prices are for regular people, not jacked up as at the tourist-oriented tavernas in the Plaka.

Bored in the Metro station

After lunch, some glasses of retsina, and a Greek coffee, it is time to walk to the metro at Omonoia Square (architecturally uninspiring) and head home or to your hotel. You will be tired and grubby, time for a shower and long rest.

I took the black and white photographs above on Fuji Acros 100 film with my Leica M2 camera with 35mm and 50mm Summicron lenses. The two sepia images are from a Moto G5 mobile phone. Click any picture to see it enlarged. Thank you for reading.

Return to Monasteraki, Athens, Greece - revisit with Tri-X film

During my 2016 trip to Greece, I revisited the Monasteraki district of Athens, the crowded urban core of the city. I have been there before many times, but the old twisty streets and mixture of early 20th century buildings and modern concrete monstrosities warrant careful exploration. The main commercial street is Athenas, a straight line which connects Monasteraki plaza (near the Pláka) to Omonia Square, but the side streets have no obvious grid or pattern - they are confusing.

Pallados Street

This time, I was struck by how much worse the graffiti was. I know that many Greeks people object to the austerity and cutbacks imposed by the EU in exchange for loaning Greece money, but defacing their once handsome city does not serve anyone's interests nor make much of a statement.

Trendy ladies on Pallados.

Some of the street art is slightly interesting. Note how this building is triangle-shaped to fit in one of the odd corner lots.

Junk (antiques) shop on Aristogonos.

There is a cluster of flea-market-style shops on Aristogonos, off Athinas. I did not see much of interest, but they seem to stay in business. Many of them now are owned or staffed by Middle-eastern men. It is not a nice atmosphere, and there is a lot of filth and debris on the streets.

The metro runs from Piraeus (the harbor) through downtown and on to the suburb of Kiffisias.

This is approximately the same location, photographed in 1951 or 1952.

A trip downtown is never complete without a visit to the Central Market (click the link for an earlier article).

After you are done watching the fish mongers chopping up fish or arranging octopi and squid, stop at one of the small restaurants in the Market to tuck in to fresh grilled sardines and some Retsina. Then have a Greek coffee at the Mokka coffee shop next door. This is the real Greece.

I took the square photographs with my Rolleiflex 3.5E camera on Kodak Tri-X 400 film. The 1951 photograph of the metro is from a Leica IIIC 35mm camera, film stock possibly an Agfa emulsion. The IIIC has recently been overhauled and is back in operation.