More Wandering around Athens (Nov. 2024)

We continue wandering through Athens. I never lose interest here. 

Uncontrolled late-20th century urban sprawl, northwest Athens. Mount Parnitha is in the distance. (Samsung phone digital frame)

Parts of Athens are a congested concrete jungle. City fathers failed grossly to not impose green space requirements, build parks, or lay out arterial highways after World War II. In the scene above, the land in the foreground had disputed ownership for over five decades but will be preserved as park land.

Scooters on Asklipiou Street, near the Politeia bookstore (21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss ZM lens)

The Politeia bookstore has a good selection of books in many languages. In the past, we shopped at the famous Eleftheroudakis bookstore, but it closed in 2016 after 120 years of business.

Phones, Asklipiou Street

I am not a fan of graffiti, but it adds some color to the rather severe limestone walls. It does not do much for the phone booths. 

Lycabettus Hill from the National Museum (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

Mrs. Poppy's store in the Plaka (35mm ƒ/2.8 Pentax-A lens)

Monasteraki Square (35mm ƒ/2.8 Pentax-A lens)

Deep thinking, Athenas Street

Most of these frames are from Kodak Portra 160 film. If you are interested in earlier visits, including the 1950s, please type "Athens" in the search box.

Athenas Street, Athens, with the 21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss C Biogon Lens (Nov. 2024)

I've walked along Athinas Street tens of time over the decades, but I can't resist re-exploring each time I visit Athens (Greece). The noises, smells, colors, signs, tourists, merchants, and bustle make it fun if a bit intense. These vendors sell almost everything for the household except, possibly, large appliances. 

This last trip was in November of 2024. In the past, November in Athens could be cold, wet, and blustery. But 2024 smiled on us. It was dry and reasonably warm. My relatives tell me that more and more tourists linger in Athens later in the season than pre-pandemic. Greece as a winter destination?

This time, I wanted to try my 21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss ZM Biogon lens. It is wide enough to let you grab big chunks of the scene, which is handy on crowded streets. I used Portra 160 film in my Leica M2 camera and measured the light with a Gossen Luna Pro digital light meter. 

These card phones still work?

Ah, some colorful grunge

Central Market

The Central Market is best early morning, when vendors and buyers haggle over octopus, fish, and other goodies. I have written about the market before. If you are interested, type "Central Market" in the search box.

The spice vendor. I always take bags of fresh oregano home to USA with me.

The nut vendor

Dear Readers, you know where this is going. What do you do after several tiring hours exploring the city? Why, you go eat fish, of course!

I suggest Attalos Restaurant at Adrian 9 in the Thissio area near the Flea Market. Don't forget some Horta (Χόρτα) for your greens, a glass of Retsina, and baklava for dessert.

This ends our short walk downtown. More Athens and Greece to come soon.

My Leica M2 with the 21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss C Biogon lens, correct Zeiss hood, and a Leitz 21mm viewfinder. Note the finder is offset so as to not cover part of the shutter speed dial.

Kodak T400CN Film in Athens, Nov. 2024 (Abandoned Films 13c)

Here are some more examples of the long-discontinued Kodak T400CN black and white film in Athens, Greece (see the previous article on using T400CN again). Being long expired (the film, not me), I exposed it at Exposure Index 50 in my Leica M2 camera. It is a bit limiting in dark places, but I was careful to hold steadily, so even exposures of 1/30 or 1/60 of a second look fine.

Athenas Street with Monasteraki Square in the distance (Leica M2, 21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss Biogon lens)

Mrs. Poppy's souvenir store in the Plaka (21mm ƒ/4.5 Zeiss Biogon lens)

Anafiotika kitty (below the Acropolis)

Kitties in the twisty winding alleys below the Acropolis are a thing. I saw two photographers with big lenses concentrating on cat portraits.

Anafiotika artwork (21mm Biogon lens)

Anafiotika artwork (21mm Biogon lens)

First Cemetery, Athens (35mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

First Cemetery is the resting place for generations of prominent Athenian citizens, including politicians, poets, authors, and even Heinrich Schliemann.

Seattle Sonics having a coffee at carpo, Psychico 

Beetle in front of traditional villa, Psychico

I remember when Psychico was a quiet town of traditional 2-floor villas. My parents rented one in the 1950s. But now, and quickly, Psychico is becoming a suburb of apartment buildings. 

Northeast Photographic in Bath, Maine, processed the T400CN film in standard C-41 chemistry. I scanned the film with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED scanner, controlled by NikonScan 4.03 software. The digital ICE system effectively cleans spots and blemishes.

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.

Return to the Village in the City: Anafiotika (Pláka), Athens (Greece 2019-02)

Dear Readers, this is Part 2 of my summer series. Even if you are surrounded by snowdrifts, you can take a mental journey to the sun and the Mediterranean.

Every time I visit Athens, I like to check out the Anafiotika district, the cluster of tiny village-like houses percheded below the east slope of the Acropolis. It can be considered part of the Pláka (Πλάκα), but the Pláka is larger, encompassing more commercial and archaeological parts of the city. Anafiotika retains its 1800s Cycladic architecture in the form of little whitewashed houses in a tumble of narrow lanes and alleys. It is an oasis of peace in the bustling and noisy urban mess that comprises modern Athens.

This is a telephoto picture taken from Lykavittos Hill (also known as Mount Lycabettus) showing the Acropolis and Faleron Bay in the distance. The Anafiotika is the cluster of small houses just under the Parthenon.

In the Anafiotica (Moto G5 digital file)

The narrow alleys are fun to negotiate. They are popular with tourists working their way from the new Acropolis Museum towards the Pláka, often on their way to find a good lunch.

Doors are a popular but now a cliche photographic topic. Somewhere in the house, we have a book titled Greek Doors.

Graffiti and old windows are also pretty interesting.

The next time you visit Athens, make time to visit Anafiotika and the Pláka in general. In my opinion, Athens in August of 2019 looked cleaner and more cheerful than in 2016 and 2018. After ten years of economic austerity, political turmoil, and inundation by refugees from Middle East war zones, Greece may have turned a corner and be on the path to recovery. Tourism has increased, the locals are welcoming, and prices are low compared to northern European countries. The police seem to have controlled the refugees in the Monasteraki area, but I can't comment on crime.

I photographed the Pláka area in 2012 and 2013, and my dad photographed Athens and the Pláka in 1953 (click the links).

The 2019 photographs are from Kodak Ektar 100 film taken with a Yashica Electro 35CC camera with a fixed 35mm ƒ/1.8 Color-Yashinon lens. I scanned the negatives on a Plustek 7600i film scanner. This roll was disappointing, and some frames displayed odd colors. Low-contrast settings looked best.

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.