stadia.gr/forum

[yelos]

ATHENS 2004: After nearly 3,000 years, Olympics still worth celebrating

http://sports.yahoo.com/oly/news?slug=ap-olympicsoverview&prov=ap&type=lgns

[Atlanta Greek]

Φαινεται να τα εχουν κανει θαλλασα οι Αμερικανοι που εχουν το συμβολαιο για την ασφαλεια. Πληρωσαμε για Cadillac και παιρνουμε Chevlolett οπως λεει και το αρθρο.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/17/international/europe/17GREE.html?ei=5006&en=6c52ae2d10cfdd9e&ex=1090641600&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=

[nikitas]

Αφού συνεχίζεται η απεργία στα ελληνικά ΜΜΕ, μερικά άρθρα από τα διεθνή:

Ένα θετικό από ΝΥ times με γενικές πληροφορίες
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/travel/18wdathens.html?ex=1090728000&en=ffc03ef33c34c903&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1

Από το γαλλικό πρακτορείο για doping και ασφάλεια. Θα καταλήξουμε τελικά να τα έχουμε όλα έτοιμα και να λείπουν οι αθλητές;
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040717/ts_afp/oly_2004_040717001944

Κριτική από το WWF αυτή τη φορά
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/SPORT/07/16/olympics.environment.reut/index.html

Και συνεχίζεται η κριτική από τη Διεθνή Αμνηστεία
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/story/0,10082,1263464,00.html

[nikitas]

Άρχισαν τα προβλήματα και για το Πεκίνο

http://www.abc.net.au/sport/content/200407/s1156347.htm

Ας φροντίσουμε να μην κράξουμε στις Τελετές τον "ξέρετε ποιόν"

[Nikos C.]

Απ'την αλλη τώρα, κάποιος που γιουχάρει τον Μπλάτερ είναι για τα μαύρα τα κατάστοιχα;

[zigzag]

Καταρχήν παιδιά, καλώς σας βρήκα.

Προσωπική μου άποψη είναι ότι δίνουμε πολύ σημασία στο τι γράφει ο κάθε κομπλεξικός δημοσιογράφος που κριτικάρει την χώρα μας και την διοργάνωση των Ολυμπιακών αγώνων. Για να δείτε την ειρωνεία του πράγματος θα ήθελα να επισημάνω ένα δύο πραγματάκια:

Σε ότι σχέση με την ασφάλεια τον αγώνων: Να δεχτώ υποδείξεις και παρατηρήσεις από ποιους? Από αυτούς που δεν μπόρεσαν να προστατεύσουν ούτε το πεντάγωνο τους από τρομοκρατική επίθεση? Αν το θέμα δεν ήταν τόσο τραγικό θα προκαλούσε τα γέλια. Για να καταλάβετε την ανοργανωσιά τους, γνώριζαν ότι το αεροσκάφος κατευθυνόταν προς την περιοχή του πενταγώνου και δεν εύρισκαν διαθέσιμο stand-by αναχαιτιστηκό για να το σταματήσουν. Όταν τελικά βρέθηκε, διαπίστωσαν ότι δεν είχαν μεριμνήσει να είναι εξοπλισμένο και ο μόνος τρόπος για να σταματήσει τι αεροσκάφος με τους αεροπειρατές θα ήταν να το διεμβολίσει!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Πάμε τώρα στους φίλους μας τους Άγγλους. Τι να πρωτοθυμηθώ. Το λούσιμο με μπογιά του Τόνυ Μπλερ μέσα στο κοινοβούλιο ή τον βομβαρδισμό με όλμους στην αυλή του τότε πρωθυπουργού Τζον Μέϊτζορ πριν από μερικά χρόνια από τον ΙΡΑ. Χρειάζεται να συνεχίσω? Ή μήπως να σχολιάσω τους Γερμανούς και τα μπουκέτα που έφαγε ο καγκελάριος από δυσαρεστημένο πολίτη πριν κανένα μήνα. Έχετε ιδέα τι θα γινόταν αν κάποιο από τα παραπάνω περιστατικά συνέβαινε στην Ελλάδα? Μήπως χρειάζεται να επισημάνω ότι υπήρξαν νεκροί από τρομοκρατικές επιθέσεις τόσο στην Ολυμπιάδα της Ατλάντα όσο και στην Ολυμπιάδα του Μονάχου σε δύο θεωρούμενες ανεπτυγμένες και ασφαλείς χώρες?

Σε ότι αφορά την ποιότητα των εγκαταστάσεων: Η άποψη μου είναι ότι και πολλά κάναμε. Το πρώτο πράγμα που έπρεπε να κάνει η επιτροπή διαχείρισης είναι να ισοσκελίσει τα αναμενόμενα έσοδα και έξοδα. Δεν ξέρω για εσάς αλλά εγώ προτιμώ να κατηγορηθώ από κάποιες ξένες εφημερίδες και να ακούσω μουρμούρα, παρά να πληρώνω τις εγκαταστάσεις από την τσέπη μου για τα επόμενα 50 χρόνια μπας και ακούσω κάποιο επαινετικό σχόλιο. Στο τέλος είμαι σίγουρος ότι πάλι θα έβρισκαν κάτι να πουν. Εν ανάγκη θα επεσήμαιναν τους κινδύνους που θα έχει ο καλοκαιρινός ήλιος της Αθήνας για την υγεία των επισκεπτών.

Αυτά, και όπως είπα δεν χρειάζεται να τα παίρνουμε όλα της μετρητής. Εγώ έχω αρχίσει να διασκεδάζω με αυτή τους την ασχολία μαζί μας.

[projected]

paidia apo Rome grafw . Oi Italoi mas antimetwpizoun me asxhmo tropo 8a elega sta reporage tous .Anaferontai sunexeia stis ka8usterhseis kai kanoun sugkriseis me to Pekino pou ndn brisketai se polu kalo epipedo (kata ta legomena tous) .

Ton teleutaio mhna hremhsan ligo (meta to Euro2004) alla genika 8a elega oti tous "ponaei" polu h apwleia twn Olumpiakwn agwnwn ( H Rome an 8umaste htan h antipalos mas )

[Nikos C.]

Δύο καλά (δηλαδή fair) από τους Times.

Για την ασφάλεια:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/travel/18securebx.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Και ένα για τις προετοιμασίες.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/travel/18games.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[KEFALONITIS]

H DORA ALLAXSE FULO..?!

"As for Olympic spirit, Mayor Bakoyannis vowed it would come. "We are not at the 13th of August," he said, smiling. "It will be there."

(Apospasma apo to a8ro twn NYT)

[Nikos C.]

Δεν το μαθες; Αχ αυτή η απεργία των ΜΜΕ!

[KEFALONITIS]

Nikola...kaaalooo



Merika a8ra apo to Travel section twn NY Times:

i)
July 18, 2004
Where Athletes Once Ran
By SHERRY MARKER

HIS summer, when the games return to Greece for the Athens 2004 Olympics, athletes will again compete in the ancient stadiums at Olympia and Nemea. On July 31, some 700 contestants from more than 20 countries are registered to race in groups of 12 for 100 meters on the clay surface of Nemea's stadium.

The 100-meter races are sponsored by the Society for the Revival of the Nemean Games, founded in 1994 by the citizens of the villages of Ancient and New Nemea to revive the spirit of the ancient contest. The society's stated hope is that "anyone and everyone" will participate, and contestants ranging in age from 10 to 97 have signed up to run in the 100 meters, the 7.5-kilometer "Footsteps of Herakles" race or both. Then, on Aug. 18, the shot put event in the Athens 2004 Olympics - the XXVIII International Olympiad - will take place at Olympia, bringing the games back to the place where they began.

Every four years from 776 B.C. to A.D. 394, athletes from throughout the Greek world came to Olympia to compete for a victor's wreath of olive fronds - a prize more appropriate for a goat, as one ancient cynic remarked. For almost 200 years, Olympia held the monopoly on the Panhellenic games, but during the sixth century B.C., games were founded at three other sanctuaries: Delphi (586 B.C.), Isthmia (580 B.C.) and Nemea (573 B.C.). Of the four, Delphi in central Greece was best known both then and now for its famous oracle. By contrast, the three Panhellenic sites in the Peloponnesus - Olympia, Isthmia and Nemea - all owed their fame to their games.

Recently, I set out by car to revisit the Peloponnesian sites where most of the athletic action in ancient Greece took place. It is technically possible to leave Athens in the morning, see Isthmia and Nemea by midafternoon, pull into Olympia in the early evening and take on the imposing site, a 10-minute walk from the village, and its three excellent museums the next day. I prefer to leave endurance contests to the athletes and spent a day at Isthmia and Nemea and two full days at Olympia.

I've seldom encountered any other visitors at Isthmia, or enough visitors at Nemea that I wanted to flee, but Olympia gets a steady inundation of tour groups. The best way to avoid the throngs is to arrive precisely when the site opens, leave when it becomes hard to see the monuments because of the groups, and return an hour or two before the site closes, when most visitors are long gone. Still, crowds at Olympia are hardly a new problem. The first/second century A.D. philosopher Epictetus groused: "Aren't you crushed by the crowd. Aren't you bothered by the noise, the din and other nuisances?"

Olympia sprawls along a green valley in the northwest Peloponnesus, shaded by olive, pine and poplar trees, watered by the Alpheus and Kladeus Rivers. Olympia usually smells wonderful, scented by wildflowers in the spring, and oregano, thyme and the pine trees in the summer. In late antiquity, the two rivers repeatedly burst their banks, flooded and finally buried the sanctuary. It's almost impossible to believe, but this vast site went missing for more than a thousand years. Then, in 1766, the English antiquarian Richard Chandler rediscovered Olympia, and in 1875, German excavators began to unearth the monuments from under 16 feet of silt.

The modest excavation house where the first archaeologists lived overlooks the site and has recently been converted into the new Museum of the History of the Excavations in Olympia. Photographs show understandably startled and confused 19th-century workers staring down into the deep excavation pits from which ancient Olympia was re-emerging. The shovels and small whisk brooms on display uncovered much that one now admires, including the remains of baths and gymnasiums, the clusters of administrative offices, the stadium and the sacred precinct with the stolid temples of Zeus and Hera, shrines and treasuries.

Like other Panhellenic sanctuaries, Olympia was not a city, but an amalgam of a religious shrine and athletic complex. Now, as in antiquity, the stadium and the temples of Hera and Zeus are easy to spot. At present, archaeologists are racing to re-erect one of the columns in the Temple of Zeus before this summer's Olympics. Nearby, workers are also restoring the base of the Philippeion, the round shrine that Philip of Macedon less than modestly commissioned after he conquered Greece in 338 B.C.

It is not always easy to be sure what's what in the extensive remains of athletic and administrative buildings that flank Olympia's sacred precinct. As a result, many visitors walk through the site with the same half-startled, half-confused expressions as those early excavators. I once sat writing postcards saying that I was in the famous gymnasium at Olympia only to discover later that I had been in the less-famous palestra, where athletes also practiced. Plans of the sanctuary sometimes do and sometimes do not help to pinpoint your location or destination: the Great Altar of Zeus, where 100 oxen were slaughtered and burned during the games, has not survived, but is shown on most plans. Gone, too, is the sensible little shrine that was dedicated to Zeus the Averter of Flies.

Olympia's hippodrome, where two- and four-horse chariots raced and often crashed, has yet to be found, but was probably near the well-preserved stadium. If you're curious to know just how big an ancient chariot wheel was, you can see one by heading uphill from the site to the second new museum, the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity. In the handsome 19th-century building that housed Olympia's first archaeological museum, it is a real delight. An impressive terra-cotta owl guards the museum from the red tile roof above its colonnaded portico.

The museum's 12 galleries show that the games began modestly enough with one foot race on one day: the roughly 200-meter dash known as the stadion, from which the word stadium derives. In time, the games lasted five days, as events including boxing and wrestling (breaking fingers was forbidden), running in armor and chariot races were added. Although athletes still competed for the glory of a victor's wreath, they were awarded free meals for life and large sums of money when they returned home. Throughout the museum, statues, vases and athletic gear show how the athletes trained and competed.

Olympia's Archaeological Museum is directly opposite the ancient site. The museum was built in 1972, and its recent renovations did not enliven its dull exterior. However, the reinstalled galleries, arranged chronologically, are now well lighted, and the exhibits make clear that nothing but the best was good enough for Ancient Olympia. Almost every victorious athlete dedicated a statue here, and victorious generals and triumphant cities erected monuments. The Hermes of Praxiteles, the Nike of Paionios and the sculpture from the Temple of Zeus are the museum's superstars. One new display is a poignant reminder of how much has been lost: a case of delicate bronze ringlets that are all that remain from statues that once stood in the sanctuary.

From Olympia, I headed across the Peloponnesus to the Sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia, on the eastern side of the narrow isthmus of Corinth. The site is on the main road through the desultory village of Kryas Vrisi, on a parched plateau cut through by deep ravines. I keep trying to like Isthmia, but, I must confess, I find it the kind of site best described as "of interest primarily to the professional archaeologist." In fact, Oscar Broneer, the University of Chicago archaeologist who excavated here from 1952 to 1967, remarked of the Temple of Poseidon that "the casual visitor will marvel chiefly, perhaps, at the thoroughness of its destruction." Dr. Broneer showed extraordinary restraint in his remark: there is little left even of the temple's foundations.

In short, if you didn't know, you'd never guess from what's here that Isthmia was once both an important Panhellenic sanctuary and a thriving market town on the main road between Athens and Corinth. In troubled times, the sanctuary's monuments were an irresistible quarry for those who needed nicely hewn blocks to build a defense wall or augment a fortress - hence today's meager remains.

The Sanctuary of Zeus in the valley of Nemea, 25 miles southwest of Isthmia, is circled by hills, many covered with the vineyards that produce excellent wines. One red wine, known as the Blood of Hercules, honors the hero who slew the Nemean lion and, according to some accounts, founded the games both here and at Olympia.

If there's simply not enough to see at Isthmia, and perhaps too much to digest easily at Olympia, Nemea is just right. The Temple of Zeus stands at the center of Nemea's sacred precinct. Flanking it are the remains, as at Olympia, of the sports complex and administrative buildings. Nemea's excellent archaeological museum has windows overlooking the site, which allow visitors the unusual treat of being able to see where many exhibits were found.

Nemea is a wonderful place to get a sense of how the centuries rub elbows in Greece: the site's fifth-century A.D. Christian basilica was built in part from stones pillaged from the fourth-century B.C. Temple of Zeus. And the basilica itself rests on the foundations of a large fourth-century B.C. hotel where participants in the Nemean games once stayed.

For centuries, only three of the slender Doric limestone columns of the Temple of Zeus remained standing. After three years of work, two additional columns were re-erected in 2002, and there are plans to restore at least four others. It is often possible to watch as workers flute replacement column drums and restore ancient drums from fragments that were once shattered and scattered.

THE Romans are justly famous for their baths, but Nemea boasts the remains of a fourth-century B.C. Greek bathing establishment, the first built at any Panhellenic sanctuary. It was hot when I visited Nemea recently, and it was easy to imagine myself splashing about in the bath's plunge pool. Alas, it was only a fantasy: the pool is nicely restored, but empty.

And my fantasy totally repressed the realities of ancient athletics, which were almost entirely male. With few exceptions, women neither competed in, nor watched, the games, although contests for women honoring Zeus's long-suffering wife Hera were held at Olympia. Still, most Greeks derided the famously fit Spartan women, who exercised in scanty costumes that revealed their thighs. A few very wealthy matrons are known to have sponsored teams in chariot races. Their male relatives, able to watch the races, presumably told them who won.

The New Nemean Games this July 31 will make several accommodations to modern conventions: both men and women will race, none naked, although all will run barefoot. Contestants will wear a chiton (short tunic), which they will put on in what the excavation director, Stephen G. Miller, a classics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has identified as the stadium's locker room. Then, they will sprint through the limestone entrance tunnel into the stadium to "toe the line" incised in the ancient starting block for their 100-meter race. And then, as Dr. Miller puts it, they will "add their footsteps to those first made here 2,300 years ago."

Site Information

Olympia: The ancient site of Olympia, (30-26240) 22-517, in the modern village of Olympia, known as Archaia Olympia, is open daily 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. in summer; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. (End dates for summer hours vary for these sites and museums, but generally end Nov. 1; it is always best to call ahead.)

For Olympics information, visit athens2004.com; for information on museums, sites and events, try www.culture.gr.

The Archaeological Museum, (30-26240) 22-742, is open Tuesday to Sunday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Monday noon to 7 p.m. in summer; Tuesday to Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Monday noon to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. Admission to the site and the museum is $7.50 each, $11.25 for both, at $1.25 to the euro.

The Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity is open Tuesday to Sunday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Monday noon to 7 p.m. in summer; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday and Monday noon to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. Free.

The Museum of the History of Excavations in Olympia, (30-26240) 29-128, is open Tuesday to Sunday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Monday noon to 7 p.m. in summer; Tuesday to Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Monday noon to 5 p.m. the rest of the year. Free.

The heart of Pierre de Coubertin (1862-1937), the French aristocrat who was instrumental in reviving the modern Olympics, is interred in a stele on the grounds of the International Olympic Academy, a five-minute walk from the ancient site.

Isthmia: The ancient site of Isthmia and the museum, (30-27410) 37-244, in the village of Kyras Vrisi, are open daily 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. this summer (closed Monday the rest of the year); $2.50; under 18 free.

Nemea: The ancient site of Nemea, the stadium and museum, (30-27460) 22-739, in the village of Archaia Nemea, are open daily 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; admission to all three, $5.

Information on Nemea and its games can be found at www.nemea.org.

Lodging and Dining

There is no shortage of hotels and restaurants in the modern village of Olympia. The most congenial place to stay when visiting Isthmia and Nemea is the town of Nafplio, which also has a wide range of hotels. Useful Web sites for hotel information are www.gnto.gr and www.all-hotels-in-greece.com.


SHERRY MARKER spends part of the year in Greece.



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top

[KEFALONITIS]

Kalo:

July 18, 2004
WHAT'S DOING
In AthensBy CORINNE LaBALME

thens embarked on a herculean task when it successfully bid to bring the Olympic Summer Games back to home turf. The municipal projects were so numerous, and so wildly ambitious, that not all of them will be completed on schedule. Restoration work on the Acropolis, for instance, will be going on for years after the last medals have been awarded.

Nevertheless, the amount that has been accomplished is impressive. Athens has many gorgeous new hotels, renovated museums, an efficient new airport, and an elegant Olympic Stadium with a winglike steel-and-glass dome designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The stadium defied naysayers by being ready last month.

The most lasting and efficient monument to the 2004 Games, which will be held Aug. 13 to 29, is buried underground. Additions to the Athens subway system have already helped ease congestion. And, as every dig in downtown Athens turns up archaeological treasure, the new stations have been turned into mini- museums. Beneath Syntagma Square, commuters can commune with Submycenaean graves, painted terra-cotta drainpipes from the fifth century B.C., and parts of an aqueduct, all preserved behind glass.

The good news for last-minute travelers is that, because the initial reports of Athens's readiness were so dismal and concern for security remains great, tickets and hotel rooms are still available. The bad: The city is still hit by summer blackouts, as a power failure July 12 reaffirmed.

The "Cultural Olympics" program, started by Greece and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, means that museums and concert halls have all prepared blockbuster programs for the summer. Ticket information for sports events is available at (800) 360-2004 or (877) 457-4647; online at www.cartan.com or www.cosport.com. Last-minute hotel accommodations during the Games can be found online at www.athenshousing.com.

The 2004 Paralympics, which will take place at various Olympic sites around Athens, are scheduled for Sept. 17 to 28. Information: www.athens2004.com.

Events

Expect sport-oriented shows in many Athenian museums, and longer hours than usual during the Games. Through Sept. 15, "Magna Graecia: Athletics and the Olympic Spirit," at the Museum of Cycladic Art, 4 Neophytou Douka Street, telephone (30-210) 722 8321, online at www.cycladic-m.gr, traces the Olympic ideal to the frontiers of the Greek world with more than 270 archaeological objects from 30 museums in Southern Italy and Greece, including the first known stone model of a stadium, second century A.D., from Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. Open Monday and Wednesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Closed Aug. 15. Admission: about $4.40 (at $1.25 to the euro). From Aug. 9 to 30, it will be open at no charge, Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Tuesday to 5 p.m.

After nearly two years of renovation, the National Archaeological Museum, 44 Patission Street, (30-210) 821 7717, will reopen with "Agon Sport Spirit in Ancient Greece," through Oct. 31, with 280 artifacts relating to everything from Olympic wrestling to poetry contests. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission: $7.50.

A major fashion exhibition runs through Oct. 17 at the new annex of the chic Benaki Museum, 138 Pireos Street, (30-210) 367 1000, www.benaki.gr. The exhibition, "Drapery: Ancient Greece to the 21st Century," juxtaposes classical statues with gowns by Mariano Fortuny, Madame Vionnet and Issey Miyake. Some gowns adorn mannequins; others are strung up like mobiles or spread on the floor. Open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; admission is $3.75.

Many Athenian galleries that typically close in August will remain open this year. The British artists Gilbert and George, known for their provocative use of nudity, religious symbolism and profanity, examine the dark side of team spirit with "Thirteen Hooligan Pictures - 2004" at the Bernier-Eliades Gallery, 11 Eptachalkou Street, (30-210) 341 3936, Aug. 3 to 30, 8 p.m. to midnight.

Through Sept. 28, the Athens Festival presents open-air drama, dance and music in the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, built in A.D. 161, at the foot of the Acropolis. The London Symphony Orchestra performs Aug. 7 to 9; tickets are $43 to $137.50. The Lyceum of Greek Women presents traditional folk dance and songs on Aug. 16 and 17; tickets are $27.50 to $87.50. Comedy reigns on Sept. 9 with the Greek National Theater production of Aristophanes' antiwar "Lysistrata"; tickets are $18.75 to $68.75. The main box office is in the arcade at 39 Panepistimiou Street, (30-210) 928 2900, fax (30-210) 928 2933, online at www.hellenicfestival.gr. Tickets go on sale three weeks before shows.

Sightseeing

Avant-garde got a slow start in antiquity-obsessed Athens, but it is gaining ground quickly. The Rebecca Camhi Gallery, www.rebeccacamhi.com, which opened next to the gritty Central Food Market in 1995, is usually credited with kick-starting the hip downtown scene centered in the rough-edged Psirri district. Although Camhi is closed for renovation this summer, many Psirri galleries, like A. Antonopoulou, on the fourth floor at 20 Aristofanous Street, (30-210) 321 4994, will open from 8 p.m. to midnight during the Olympics. It is a neighborhood of busy nightclubs and jazz bars, which generally open at 11 on weeknights and go till dawn or later on weekends, but many are closed till after the summer. Stoa Athanaton, 19 Sofokleus, (30-210) 321 4362, a popular spot for Greek-Turkish rembetika blues, will reopen in October.

In the quest for open space, "downtown" Athenian art and mainstream museums like the new Benaki Annex are moving westward from Psirri to a neighborhood called Gazi. Greece's largest contemporary fine arts complex is housed in an abandoned 19th-century gasworks dubbed Technopolis, 100 Pireos Street, (30-210) 346 0981. Through Aug. 30, the site's Kostis Palmas Hall will welcome an exhibit devoted to the Baron Pierre de Coubertin and the first modern Games, which he helped organize in Athens in 1896. Open daily, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; free. Technopolis also houses the first Greek museum dedicated to Maria Callas. The fledgling museum presents some of her letters, personal photographs and clothes.

A few blocks north, an early 20th-century brick textile factory has been converted into a museum-conference center called Athinais, at 34-36 Kastorias Street, (30-210) 348 0000, www.Athinais.com.gr, with restaurants and exhibition rooms. The in-house Pierides Museum presents "3,200 Years of Cypriot Art" through Dec. 31. Open daily, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission: $3.75.

Where to Stay

With double-glazed windows and air-conditioning, the Omonia Grand Hotel, (30-210) 523 5230, fax (30-210) 523 4955, www.grecotel.gr, is an oasis of calm in Athens's answer to Times Square: noisy, central Omonia Square. The 115 rooms, renovated in 2000, have CD players, cable television, voice mail and a pleasing, modern décor that incorporates trompe l'oeil Greek key friezes as room accents. Amenities include marble bathrooms. Doubles: $187.50.

Two blocks south of the Acropolis, the Hotel Herodion, 4 Rovertou Galli Street, (30-210) 923 6832, fax (30-210) 921 1650, www.herodion.gr, has 90 air-conditioned rooms decorated in soft pastel shades of peach and pistachio with marble bathrooms. ISDN lines and handicapped-access rooms are available. The restaurant is off the ground-floor garden, and the lounge chairs on the rooftop terrace offer priceless views of the Parthenon. Doubles: $187.50.

All 176 rooms at the Best Western Esperia Palace Hotel, 22 Stadiou Street, (30-210) 323 8001, fax (30-210) 323 8100, www.esperia.gr, should be freshly redecorated with pale gold walls and red carpets in time for Olympic guests. The copious breakfast buffet is a bonus at this city-center hotel four blocks from Syntagma Square. Doubles: $218.75.

Budget: Open since May, the Hotel Amazon, 19 Mitropoleos Street, (30-210) 323 4002, fax (30-210) 322 6672, www.amazonhotel.gr, has 40 simple but spotless air-conditioned rooms and glossy white bathrooms with showers. Convenient to Syntagma Square and Ermou Street shopping, the hotel is directly across from one of the city's most charming curiosities: the tiny 16th-century Agia Dinami chapel wedged beneath a high-rise office building. Doubles: From $112.50.

Luxury: In 1896, the Baron Pierre de Coubertin stayed at the Grande Bretagne, Syntagma Square, (30-210) 333 0000, fax (30-210) 322 8034, www.grandebretagne.gr. After a 15-month makeover, this 19th-century landmark reopened in March 2003 with two swimming pools, a flashy spa and 321 enlarged rooms with walk-in wooden closets, elaborate chandeliers and an impressive array of neo-Classical furniture collected at European auction houses. Doubles: $312.50 to $587.50. Closed for 14 years, the King George II, Syntagma Square, (30-210) 322 2210, fax (30-210) 325 0504, www.grecotel.gr, reopened on May 31. Parquet floors, intricate Venetian lamps and antique furniture lend a boutique-hotel flair to the 102 rooms. The two-bedroom penthouse suite, $9,375 a night, has a private outdoor pool. The spa and indoor pool open this month. Doubles: from $456.25.

Where to Eat

In a garden courtyard adjoining the National Historical Museum, Palia Vouli, 9 Anthimou Gazi in the Syntagma district, (30-210) 321 1311, serves full meals (toasted cheese appetizers, $11.25; grilled shrimp in lemon and olive oil, $30), plus pasta and copious main course salads. The Old Parliament salad - piled high with mixed lettuce, steamed vegetables, pine nuts and raisins in a sweet mustard vinaigrette - is $14.40. A bottle of Greek chardonnay averages $37.50.

The ivory-tinted Tudor Hall restaurant that opened May 31 atop the King George II Hotel on Syntagma Square offers sweeping views of downtown Athens and the Acropolis. The lavish menu created by Sotiris Evangelou in conjunction with Alain Ducasse features spiny lobster Caesar salad with coral sauce, red mullet in zucchini marmalade, and lamb filets in black olive crust. Dinner for two with wine: $312.50.

On a secluded street in the touristy Plaka district, the romantic, grapevine-draped Sholarheion, 14 Tripodon, (30-210) 324 7605, presents classic Greek bistro fare like yogurt-cucumber salad, white beans, greens simmered in olive oil, garlic cod, and stuffed vine leaves on a dim-sum style tray. Each dish is $2.50 to $5. All the wine and ouzo is made on the family's country property. Dinner for two with wine: $31.25.

The car-free plaza in front of the 19th-century Megali Mitropoli and the 12th-century Mikri Mitropoli churches provides the casual Metropol café, Place Mitropoleos, (30-210) 321 1980, with fresh air and fine views. Club sandwiches are $8.75, and a feta-topped Greek salad is $7.75. Banana milkshakes are $5, and a bottle of retsina is $13.10.

The new nightclub scene in the avant-garde Gazi district starts late. Get a head start on the evening with a barbecue buffet $25 at the Café Votanikos in the Athinais Center, 34-36 Kastorias Street, (30-210) 348 0000. The charcoal is fired up at 9 every night, and the party lasts until everyone but the cows go home.


CORINNE LaBALME lives in Paris and writes frequently about travel in Europe.



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top

[KEFALONITIS]

E.na mhn anaferotan kai se asfaleia, problhmata kai sia den 8a edene to gluko..



July 18, 2004
The Hurdles Before the Games
By LIZ ROBBINS

O Greeks, the Olympics are their birthright. To Athenians, the Olympics are also their burden.

In a city where ancient statues and Doric columns are juxtaposed with traffic lights, cranes and the grand designs of Olympic reinvention, this duality has pervaded daily life during the sprint to finish before the opening ceremonies on Aug. 13.

But whether all the frenzied activity will result in a successful Olympics ultimately depends on the safety and security during the 17 days of the Summer Games.

The United States and other NATO countries, plus Israel and other nations are working with the local police and the Greek Army to secure the Games and are guarding Greece's air space and patrolling international waters. Security, at a cost the Greek government puts at of $1.2 billion, is without question the underlying theme of the world's biggest sporting event during a precarious time.

No one entity, from the Greek government to the United States government, which is taking an active role in security for the Games, can ultimately guarantee protecting the Olympics from terrorism.

The preparations and precautions, like everything else around Athens, are occurring at a furious rate.

Although the trees are just being planted, and the omnipresent white marble is still being installed, Athens will most likely be ready, the politicians and observers say.

But how many people will be there for the Games?

"These Games are definitely going to be lighter than at other Games," said Don Williams, vice president of sales and marketing for Cartan Tours, one of two official travel agencies for Olympic tickets in the United States. As of late June, Mr. Williams said that 90 percent of Cartan's allotment of 100,000 tickets had been sold.

"They are 20 to 25 percent off where Sydney was," he said. Security concerns, the lack of readiness and reports of cost overruns exceeding $1.2 billion have contributed to slow ticket sales in and outside of Athens. And late last month, the Athens 2004 Organizing Committee stated that of the 900,000 tickets allotted to International Olympic Committee officials, sponsors and broadcasters, 72,000 were returned. Of the 5.3 million total tickets, 1.95 million were sold by the end of June.

Mr. Williams cited security, the decreased value of the American dollar and the economy in general as reasons for lower ticket sales. Also, he added, the Greek government, unlike the Australian government, did not run a strong public relations campaign in the years leading up to the Games.

"We expected to have more visitors from abroad, but, in any case, you understand the general concern right now to travel," said Yiannis Evangelou, chairman of the Hellenic Association of Tourism and Travel Agents.

He said that 25,000 hotel rooms in Athens had been renovated and that there were a total of 3,000 new rooms. Although the Athens Organizing Committee was concerned in previous years about a shortage, he estimated that 1,500 of the 57,000 rooms available around Athens were still available.

"The Greeks are very similar to south Europeans - we decide very late on everything," Mr. Evangelou said, adding, "It will happen."

The Olympics have indeed shifted Greece from the land of "no worries" to the land of worry beads; many people in and around Athens are simply wary about how the Summer Games will affect the image of Greece, as well as the economy.

"I can say, I am a little afraid if there will be success or not," said Costas Tsamis, the headwaiter at Kafenio in the neighborhood of Kolonaki. "We feel anxious because we are very proud of our Olympics."

He added: "We'll be glad when it is over. We will be very tired. It will be profitable, but tiring. We'll work 14 to 15 hours a day."

Some Athenians said they planned to be out of town during what is normally a national vacation time to avoid the hassle.

But the city and its denizens have been hassled for more than four years, when construction of roads, sports facilities, city squares and subways essentially got under way, albeit three years behind schedule, disrupting traffic and what was normal life.

Instead of dwelling on the negatives, Nikos Konstandaras, the editor of the English-language edition of Athens's major daily newspaper, Kathimerini, said people should focus on how the construction has upgraded the quality of life.

"Athens just could not live anymore, and now it's been radically treated," Mr. Konstandaras said. "It's like suddenly we have arteries that are functioning. It was so congested, and now there are big roads that never existed."

Highways around Athens now have an E-ZPass-type system (although few Greeks seem to use it). A train will link the new, efficient airport to the city center, with a stop in between at the Olympic stadium in Maroussi. There will also be a new tram that links the coastal areas to the city subway, a stretch of about 14 miles; it is due to open by July 20. The subway, with its stops at main Olympic sites completed, is gleaming and simple to use. During the Games, it will be free for ticket holders and those with Olympic credentials.

The city and the organizing committee decided to spend lavishly on the competition facilities. This spending has been the object of corruption and cost overruns, and who is to blame is the subject of public arguments between the government that started them (the Pasok party) and the government installed in March (New Democracy).

When even the president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, criticized Athens's preparations recently, the project that was supposed to inflate the city's ego has seemed to wound it instead.

"For me it's very important that the Athenians know it is their own Games, it's their own city," said the mayor of Athens, Dora Bakoyannis, in an interview in late May. "Sometimes I am concerned because they feel that they are under scrutiny, under criticism the whole time."

But one recent event has captured the country's fervor like none other and lifted the seemingly sagging spirits of Athenians leading up to the Games. Greece's national soccer team won the European championship, setting off an overwhelming shift in support for the Games as measured in the latest public-opinion polls in the country.

The soccer celebration even seemed to overwhelm the relief stemming from the progress of construction. In early June, the stunning 18,000-ton Santiago Calatrava-designed arched roof on the new Olympic stadium slid into place. That seemed to allay some concerns about the most delayed and controversial project of the Games, even if later in the month, Mr. Calatrava announced that work in and around the stadium would not be finished until the day before the Games.

By early June, his arched walkway and the Agora, the central gathering place outside the stadium, were already in place. The Agora is as elegantly simple as the stadium roof is complex. Mr. Calatrava's arches rise again on the velodrome next door; the ramped cycling track inside is made of azfelia wood from Africa.

Many of the competition sites are clustered in four distinct areas linked by subway and bus. The main Olympic facilities, including those for track and field, aquatics, diving, cycling, gymnastics, basketball and tennis, as well as the main press and broadcast center, are grouped around the new Olympic stadium in Maroussi, about 15 to 45 minutes from the city center, depending on traffic. On the grounds and runways of the old airport - the Hellenikon Olympic Complex - are ball fields, indoor facilities for fencing and handball, plus a kayak and canoe course, complete with rapids.

And Athens has other, non-Olympic amenities to offer. The Archaeological Museum recently reopened after a 20-month renovation following a 1999 earthquake. Thirty-two of the 48 rooms will be open, though not some bronze and pottery collections. A special exhibition of Olympics-related pieces from around the world is scheduled to open this month.

The restoration of the Acropolis site is ongoing. Some parts, such as the western frieze of the Parthenon, will be ready by the start of the Games, but other restorations on the surrounding buildings could continue for at least two more years.

The small Acropolis museum, holding the fragments and statues not taken to the British Museum in the early 19th century, is well worth a trip. The winding walk up through the 19th-century stone community of Anafiotika, on the northeast slope of the Acropolis, provides a glimpse of Athens as it was when the modern Olympics were inaugurated in 1896. Doors open from the small, white stone houses built into the rock, but few residents come out to greet the parade of hardy hikers.

The serenity is a stark contrast to the bustling stone streets of the touristy area of the Plaka, where taverna owners hawk their food and invite foreigners to dine before the Greeks' traditional late-night dinner time.

In early June, in the upscale neighborhood of Kolonaki and in the enclosed shopping streets around Syntagma Square, where the recently renovated luxury Grand Bretagne Hotel sits opposite the Parliament building, Athens seemed a safe place to walk around.

During the Olympics, the city will be under heavy security, populated by a force of 70,000 members of the Greek police and Army. Cameras have been installed on nondescript beige light poles, along with loudspeakers, throughout the city. Underwater sensors will be installed in the port, and divers will be monitoring the waters in Piraeus.

"I don't think any city in the world is going to be more protected," Mr. Williams said.

A list of hotels where officials, journalists and tourists from the United States are staying, at least from booked packages, has been sent to the United States Embassy in Athens. Hotel guests will be given credentials, and access will be limited to one or two entrances in the hotels. People and their belongings will be hand-searched with a wand or X-ray machine, as they will be before they enter every competition site.

Identification will also be required for athletes and fans staying on one of eight cruise ships in the port of Piraeus, including the Queen Mary 2, which has 1,310 cabins.

Home stays, in rented apartments or luxury villas, will not have the same protection, other than anonymity. The program, called Filoxenia, is run through the Athens 2004 committee. As of the end of June, only 400 of the 1,000 lodgings made available by Athenians were booked.

Athenians struggled to assert their pride despite their concerns about preparations and security.

Joanna Mallion, 65, a schoolteacher who said she would leave Athens for her native island of Lesbos during the Games, maintained, "We feel good, at last the Olympics are back - it's ours after all."

The Olympic flame, transported by runners across five continents, will end its journey where it began, in front of the white marble oval Panathenaic Stadium. Rebuilt for the first modern Games, in 1896, the ancient stadium on adjacent hills in the middle of downtown, needed no major refurbishing, standing as an example of the convergence of the old and the new.

Yet at times, the modern tackiness of the Olympic enterprise is overwhelming. Rows and rows of glistening Olympic pins hang alongside Olympic T-shirts, umbrellas, bags and stuffed mascot souvenirs in virtually every store and kiosk around city. As for Olympic spirit, Mayor Bakoyannis vowed it would come. "We are not at the 13th of August," he said, smiling. "It will be there."


LIZ ROBBINS is reporting on the Olympics for The New York Times.



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | RSS | Help | Back to Top

[Ypsilon]

Μεταφορά

[Nikos C.]

[pekkek]

Πάρτε τον:

http://www.sports-central.org/sports/2004/07/17/gold_medal_mess.php

gregwyshynski@sports-central.org

[ioannis31]

Το video από το NBC με διάρκεια 2:30 λεπτά και τίτλο "Caravan to Athens". Ωαρία η κολυμβήτρια... και το sports car!

To video αυτό παίζεται σε πάνω από 5.000 κινηματογραφικές αίθουσες στις ΗΠΑ.

http://mfile.akamai.com/11655/wmv/nationalbr1.download.akamai.com/11655/video1/rm/2004/0706/5020520.200k.asx

[PatraTasos]

Εύσημα από τους Ευρωπαίους για την ασφάλεια

http://www.eboom.gr/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=505&Itemid=

[KEFALONITIS]

Apospasma apo to ap8po pou pare8ese o filos PEKKEK:


If an attack occurs, and American lives are threatened or lost, what will our response be? Do we pull our athletes from Athens? Do we declare martial law and send in Special Forces? Do we pin it all on the French?

Ti leei o cowboy..!!!??!!
Auto to ar8ro eina aparadekto, fasistiko proklhtiko kai epikinduno!!


Blepeis exoun thn empeiria tou '67 oi amerikanoi...

tetioa legomena me kanoun pou ntrepomai pou exw gennh8ei kai zw se authn thn xwra (USA)...

Dustuxws einai polloi pou skeftonta opws o ap8pografos alla eutuxws yparxoun kai polla-para polla atoma - sth USA pou antidroun se tetoies imperialistikes taseis.
Eutuxws pou megalwsa sthn Ellada..

[Nikos C.]

Μην ασχολείσαι με τον καραγγιόζη από το site του κώλου.

[nikitas]

Kefalonitis μη δίνεις μεγάλη σημασία σε όλα όσα γράφονται. Αντιγράφω από το site του: "The Jester's Quart is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture, and why NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for Sports Fan Magazine..."

Ε εντάξει, δεν μπορούν όλοι (και ειδικά κάτι Αγγλοσάξονες) να ξεχωρίσουν το fun από το humour και το splatter

[paraskevas2004]

Paidia psyxraimia. Metrame ligoteres apo 30. Opos exo 3anapei paliotera, merika sites kai periodilka sthn Amerikh alla kai ston kosmo den prepei na lambanontai sobara ypopsi giati to periexomeno tous kai to profil twn atomwn pou grafoun se ayta einai entelos ana3iopista. Giati na mpo sth diadikasia na angxo8w gia tis malakies pou leei o ka8e Wyshynski otan grafei gia atoma pou briskontai sto idio epipedo twn atomwn pou sthn Ellada diabazoun to "Sok" kai to "loipon"

Epishs den exei shmasia na eknevrizomaste me ta arnhtika ar8ra kai na en8ousiazomaste me ta 8etika, afou ola grafontai gia ena logo kai 3ekinoun apo kapou sygkekrimena. Symfwnw pws h kakh dhmosiothta den ofelei thn Ellada, alla den mporeis na tous exeis olous me to meros sou oso kai na prospa8eis. H douleia kai to ergo einai afta pou syny8ws se bgazoun asproproswpo.

[paraskevas2004]

Sxolia apo ton National Geographic Traveler, arnhtika
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0719_040719_olympics.html#main

Xamhles Polhseis eishthriwn:
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/sport_story_skin/437090%3fformat=html

Genika sxolia gia asfaleia
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=sportsNews&storyID=5706318
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,10190102%255E1702,00.html

Epidrash twn ka8ysterisewn stis proponhseis Ellhnwn a8lhtwn
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=sportsNews&storyID=549514&section=news

Geniko ar8ro gia thn hlektrodothsh sthn Evroph, basismeno sto blackout pou egine sthn Notio Ellada
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901040726-664983,00.html

Tram
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=1842438
http://sports.bostonherald.com/otherSports/view.bg?articleid=36236
Kai alla polla...

Sygkoinwnies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/3906853.stm

Eishtiria
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/soccer/indoor/kansas_city_comets/9192229.htm?1c

[thanasoulis]

Na kai ena kalo gia tin Athina.....

The star of Greece
July 16, 2004

Athens has always been regarded as a place to hurry through on the way to the islands, but that undervalues a city that needs and deserves more time. Gary Walsh reports.

For a city with 2500 years of history, Athens is quite the work in progress. The looming Olympic Games may have been the catalyst for the present frenzy of construction, renovation and revitalisation, but there is a lot more going on than can be attributed simply to the influence of next month's five-ring circus. The building crane appears to have overtaken the Acropolis as the iconic symbol of Athens, and the sound of a jackhammer is more ubiquitous nowadays than the bouzouki music on the streets of Plaka at night.

Syntagma Square, which flows down from the parliament building in the centre of Athens, is a clamorous and dusty pit, its footpaths torn up and its heart a mass of building equipment. So dismantled is Mitropoleos Street, the main link between Syntagma and Monastiraki, that the crews of the competing souvlaki shops have to scowl at each other across a landscape of scree, temporary safety barriers and disgruntled pedestrians.

And the Acropolis! The incomparable Parthenon is draped in scaffolding, and cranes grow like metal potplants from its interior. Around it spreads a litter of workers' huts, steel fences, pulleys, ladders, warning signs. Workmen drill into the unadorned marble left after Lord Elgin nicked the friezes and took them back to the British Museum, and architects, archaeologists and engineers bustle about self-importantly with sheaves of papers in their hands.

The Erechtheion has been reconstructed, with plaster Caryatids replacing the marble ladies who stand in the Acropolis Museum, but it still has bits of protective sheathing on its flanks; the worn marble steps of the Propylaia are now timber-clad. And the perfect, gorgeous little Temple of Athena Nike is gone - totally disappeared, with just a bare marble platform to let you know anything was ever there.

The story of Athena Nike is the story of the Acropolis in miniature. It has been razed and taken away to be restored piece by piece and then reassembled on the site some time in the future. Forget the Olympics countdown - the Acropolis will be a reconstruction zone for years to come.

Just three weeks ago I spent an unhappy half an hour on the rock - the low point of which was being scolded by an officious worker for wandering into a prohibited area where a plastic-tape barrier had come adrift and was flapping in the breeze. The view over Athens was undiminished, fortunately, but trying to get a view of any of the structures without the intrusion of metallic was in vain.

Even the Acropolis Museum, with its poorly displayed but magnificent collection of antiquities from the site, was cordoned off for renovation. And then there's the new state-of-the-art Acropolis Museum, destined for the foot of the Acropolis and planned as a powerful argument for the return of the "Elgin Marbles", but halted because of disputes over the design and then by the discovery of a Christian-era burial site when they started excavating.

I first visited Athens almost 25 years ago, when the military regime of the colonels was a recent memory and the idea of large-scale restorations at the Acropolis was a glint in some archaeologist's eye. Then you could walk on the marble of the Parthenon, stand inside the Temple of Athena Nike and pass through the Beule Gate and ascend the steps of the Propylaia as Sophocles and Plato had done. An awful lot has changed.

For tourists Athens has always been portrayed as a place to hurry through - a quick visit to the Acropolis, a tour of the National Archaeological Museum and then flee to Pireaus or the airport for a ferry or a plane to the islands. If you had to spend a night, you would have dinner at a Plaka taverna with all the plate-smashing, Zorba-dancing extras. Staying any longer than that was only for the hard-core cityphile.

Maybe I'm perverse, but I've always liked Athens, and spent a lot of time there after first discovering it, culminating in a long stretch a decade ago when I was writing a travel guide book. I hadn't been back since, so I was keen to reacquaint myself.

Some things were immediately different. The new airport was clean and efficient, and the new six-lane highway into Athens was quick and uncluttered (even though it suddenly funnelled into a narrow single lane through an inner-city suburb when it ran out of steam). Pedestrianisation had hit the streets around Syntagma (even though motorcycles and the occasional confused motorist still found their way into them).

The Metro underground railway was up and running, briskly and cheaply.

Some things hadn't changed. "Mezzo to kilo" of retsina (half a litre) was still the perfect accompaniment for a meal for one, especially straight from the barrel, its resiny astringency cutting through the oiliness; marble-white sheep's yoghurt swimming in rich Greek honey was still the best breakfast money can buy; Athenians were as gruff and argumentative as ever, engaging in modern Socratic dialogue over parking spots, restaurant bills and driving infractions. The Acropolis still popped up unexpectedly - thrillingly - above rooftops. And the same pictures of the same English page-three models seemed to be leering in their bosomy glory from Greek island calendars as leered in 1994 (and 1980).

More than most cities, Athens repays a more-than-superficial visit. It's too easy to dismiss the generally undistinguished, bleached-bone appearance of its architecture, especially in mid-summer when the heat radiates off its surfaces and the notorious nefos smog cloud takes up residence in the natural bowl in which the city sits, refusing to be chased away by the afternoon breezes from the Aegean.

It's a walking city, despite the summer heat and the occasional hills - the Acropolis, Lykavittos, Filopappou - that demand to be climbed (not to mention the often broken footpaths and the cars that park at all angles over them). Just walk away from the crowds and the main drag to discover the real charm of a city that owes as much to the Middle East as to Europe.

Athens is closer to Cairo than to Rome, closer to Baghdad than London, and it shows in the food, the music, the architectural style of the city and the way of life. It shares with Mediterranean neighbours such as Spain and Italy an innate desire to sleep in the afternoon, so expect most shops to shut down for a few hours' siesta at about one o'clock. It is a morning and evening city, and you should adjust your body clock accordingly. Get up early and take to the best infrastructural development in Athens in years (apart from the Metro, for which you will thank the gods), which glories in the Soviet-esque name of the Unification of Archaeological Sites Walkway. This 2.7-kilometre pedestrian strip, forged along streets that once were crammed with cars, taxis and trolley buses, links the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the Acropolis, Filopappou Hill, the Roman Forum and Hadrian's Library, the Ancient Agora and Keramikos.

Plaka and Monastiraki are where most visitors will spend their evenings and they are also where a little aimless wandering is well rewarded. On a soft-lit summer evening there is nothing better to do than to explore the tiny Anafiotika district underneath the ramparts of the Acropolis.

It was established in the 19th century by building workers from the Cycladic island of Anafi to replicate their island home, and it is by far the most charming part of Athens. You get there by heading uphill from Plaka on Prytaniou Street to Stratanos Street. Then it is a matter of dipping into tiny alleyways shaded by olive trees, vines and bougainvillea that run between whitewashed houses bright with geraniums sprouting from painted olive-oil tins.

Some of the sugar-cube houses are crumbling and the laneways may be a little rubbly - by some freak of fortune, gentrification hasn't reached Anafiotiki yet, and when lost in its labyrinth there is a sense of calm and an almost unnerving quiet. Cats pad across rooftops and there are opportunities for furtive glances into private courtyards and front rooms. All this so close to the relentless commercialism of Plaka.

Eventually you will reach the path that leads to the entrance of the Acropolis, which also serves as a lover's lane and boasts perhaps the best panorama of Athens, especially near sunset when the light is magical and the little white chapel of St George on top of faraway Lykavittos Hill is all aglow.

Plaka is at its honky-tonk peak along Kydathenaion Street, where waiters from the long line of tavernas and grill houses flourish menus like a matadors before a bull, but even here there are miraculous escapes such as the Cine Paris, an open-air cinema next to busy (and beautiful, despite the crowds and touts) Plateia Filomousou. At night you can watch your movie - English films are always subtitled, not dubbed into Greek - with the floodlit Acropolis as a backdrop.

Nearby are the fascinating ecclesiastical stores in the streets around the Mitropoleos, Athens's Orthodox cathedral. Dark and mysterious within, their window displays shine with silver icons, censers and communion cups for sale alongside priests' black stovepipe hats and vestments.

Seek out Tom's house at 23 Iperidon Street. Tom is a lunatic whose home collapsed in a 1999 earthquake and he still lives there amid a bower bird's collection of strange objects. There's a vintage motorbike next to a car dubbed the Taliban Taxi, a pair of feet sticking out of a plywood coffin, a stuffed elephant peeping from a rubbish bin, a plastic basketball ring, a collection of peculiar signs and bits of graffiti, umbrellas, couches and potplants appearing in odd places. Somewhere at the back is the tumbledown room in which Tom lives, although he ventures out frequently for bizarre conversations with himself and passersby.

You can start your own collection of ephemera at the flea market behind Monastiraki station, although the once-grand Sunday morning affair is a shadow of its former glory. Trash and treasure used to be piled up along all the streets hereabouts, but now it's mainly confined to the well-ordered section around Plateia Avyssinia. Here's the place to buy an antique bouzouki or a nice carved wooden chair. One shop sells toy cars and crystal chandeliers.

When it comes to dining, Plaka still wins hands down for atmosphere. It's hard to beat sitting under the stars, tucking into a plate of oven-baked lamb and a Greek salad, with a glass of retsina in hand (a simple tumbler, never a stemmed glass) and all the world passing by.

Rip-off places abound, but there are some tavernas that have been in business for years, providing decent food at a decent price in an authentic setting. Even the service is reasonable, as long as Greece isn't playing in a European soccer championship match and the waiters are a tad distracted.

Try O Platanos on Diogenous Street, eating outdoors under an enormous plane tree on a quiet pedestrian street. The restaurant has been serving good food for more than 70 years, and the lamb with green peas is delicious. Giouvetsakia sits on the busiest intersection in Plaka, at the corner of Kydathenaion and Adrianou streets, and the people-watching is spectacular. Try the signature giouvetsi, lamb with pasta cooked in a ceramic dish.

O Glykos is about 50 metres off Kydathenaion on quiet Geronta Street. Sit on a wobbly wooden chair at a small metal table and order the mixed mezedes: spicy sausage, peppers, gigantes beans, tzatziki and beetroot dips, dolmades, tuna salad and potato salad. All for 6 euros.

In Monastiraki at the very end of Mitropoleos Street, O Thanassis still serves up the best souvlakis with pitta in town. Buy one from the open window for a snack while wandering the city, or sit down for a heaped-plate feast while marvelling at waiters who manage to work enormously quickly and efficiently while maintaining a spectacular level of rudeness. I'd recommend subterranean O Damigos on Kydathenaion, but perversely it closes down for the three busiest months of the year. Try it in October. Still, it is an excuse to pop into the splendid and colourful Vrettos ouzeri above the cellar restaurant, where they sell a smooth house-brand ouzo that perfectly sets up an evening's dining.

Until just over a week ago, the famous National Archaeological Museum was closed for renovation for almost two years - much needed work, it has to be said. Now about three-quarters of its rooms are open to the public, with more promised in coming weeks and months. But during my visit it was shut tight, which gave an opportunity for smaller and less-visited museums to shine.

The Benaki Museum has been around for years, housed in a neo-classical mansion just around the corner from the Parliament building, but in the long absence of the Archaeological Museum its collection was the finest in Athens. The Benaki has artefacts from Neolithic times through to 19th-century paintings, but it is especially strong in Byzantine arts, with some astonishingly beautiful religious icons on display.

A great strength of the Benaki is the way in which the collection is presented - perfectly-lit, uncrowded and with excellent detailed descriptions in Greek and English. There are works from places as far afield as Egypt, Afghanistan and Eritrea in this eclectic museum, which manages to harmoniously display items as disparate as Roman-era glass bottles, classical marble sculptures, a Nobel prize medal won by poet Odysseus Elytis, liturgical vestments dating from the Ottoman occupation, folk weavings from Crete and Cyprus, a compass used by the great naval hero Andreas Miaoulis, and paintings by El Greco and Edward Lear.

Another museum to prosper during the closure of the Archaeological Museum - which is the greatest repository of Greek antiquities in the world - was the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art, which highlights the exquisite minimalist marble statues created in the Cyclades Islands of the Aegean between 3200 and 2000 BC. There is something endearing about the simplicity of the Cycladic work, a childlike innocence about the shapes and the subjects, although the wonderful little sculpture of a seated man holding a drinking cup has been appropriated by a beer company for a poster campaign.

The Goulandris Museum also has a collection of artefacts from the Bronze Age through to the Roman period and two rooms devoted to private collections: the Charles Politis Collection of pieces spanning from the 14th century BC to the sixth century AD, and the Zintilis Collection of Cypriot antiquities.

Next month's Olympic Games will go on, even though the last-minute scramble to get completely ready - so Greek - will almost certainly fall short of the mark. Athens's shiny new tram system may be up and running. Or may not. The torn-up streets may be neatly pressed and primed for hundreds of thousands of well-shod feet. Or may not. Does it really matter? After almost three millennia, what's the rush?

FAST FACTS

Getting there: Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways International have one-stop services to Athens. Emirates and Gulf Air, among others, serve Greece in two stops from Australia.

Visa requirements: Australian passport holders do not require a visa for Greece. Currency: $A1 equals about 0.58 euros.

"Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of art And eloquence" - John Milton.

[Ypsilon]

Θερμή παράκληση να περιορίζεστε μόνο στο link του άρθρου, όταν έχει τόσο μεγάλη έκταση.
Και θα έλεγα (μια και το έφερε η κουβέντα και μου έχει αναφερθεί με ΡΜ) να δίνετε και μια μικρή περίληψη πρώτα, γιατί δεν μιλάνε όλα τα μέλη Αγγλικά.