Athens wakes up

Posted by Jennifer Hallwood - 06:14 on 12 July 2009

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It's 6am and the sights and sounds of an awakening city lie before me. After a long days travel and what can only be described as a terrifying night time taxi drive, followed by food at a late night meat joint which had sheep's head at the counter that put the final fear of Zeus into the kids; it is glorious to be waking up to a busy Athenian morning.

As I sit on my corner balcony, I can see the late night turners-in arriving home. Bike revs kept low as young Athenians drop each other off just before mamas,papas and more importantly yiayias wake up. The screeching of birds from behind makes me turn round to a familiar bird call; the pet budgies with their cages hung outside the flat on balconies. I had forgotten that Greece was a country of pet birds, though not so hot on keeping other pets as my three kids had noted the previous evening seeing both stray cats and dogs within the 200 metre walk that had taken them from hotel to food stop.

The hotel itself is fine. We have a two room apartment with kitchen and bathroom but more importantly air-conditioning. This is an improvement on the Greece of 10 years ago, I think in my 5 years of living here I had only once stayed in a hotel with air-conditioning. A big white hotel on the coast at Gythio. I had read various reviews of hotels on Trip Advisor and had become almost paralysed into indecision by the conflicting reviews of almost every hotel I looked at.

We chose this one,the Hotel Diva, in the end because it wasn't completely central (read Omonia Square) and had a decent size of rooms. The area is largely residential, narrow streets filled with flats and useful shops. It's really quite leafy too for Greece and has a large church at the end of one of the streets I can see from my crossroads perch. Noise levels are rising now as it nears 7 o'clock, moped engines are louder and arguements are ongoing as people head to work this Sunday morning.

We are heading off to meet Kyrios Peter this morning at Monistiraki to have a tour round his latest home town. I'm just trying to work out how we are going to get the kids from here to there. After last nights taxi ride I don't think they'll be willing to in any car of a bright yellow colour. Time to try Athen's super new metro I think.

Well, the bells are ringing, loudly, it's 7 am and surely time for that first coffee.

Back to Greece
The Road to Athens
An Awakening City
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