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The contrast between ancient and modern architecture in Athens could not have been more pronounced...

Athens

Hank Shiffman
2003-11-29 14:28:13

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The contrast between ancient and modern architecture in Athens could not have been more pronounced. The Acropolis on its own little hill floating over a sea of shops and apartment buildings. (The walk up the hill took me down narrow walkways between people's modest backyards. What would it be like to have that on your doorstep?) And then there's the remnant of a temple to Zeus sitting in a park just a few hundred yards from the Parliament building.

Having just come from Portugal made the shock of Athens even greater. Where Lisbon felt like The Land That Time Forgot, Athens was full of people and traffic and noise. Although the drivers aren't as openly suicidal as in Portugal, they do have their own rules. Traffic lanes and traffic lights are mere suggestions. And sidewalks are just an extra lane for motorcycles. (The audience for my presentation was reduced by the fact that my visit coincided with the annual student riots. Professors from the university had to stay in their offices to keep them from being occupied. Gee, the worst we ever did was apply toilet paper to the trees!)

In the shadow of the Parthenon lies Plaka, home to shops, restaurants and other opportunities to separate tourists from their drachma. On the day we wandered through the weather was refusing to cooperate. So after an extremely soggy visit to the Acropolis we ended up checking out the merchandise. In among the leather shops and hardware stores was this collection of computer gear, whose value was declining rapidly as the rain poured down on disk drives, processor boards and other relics of our modern age. (The cats on the right have nothing to do with the junk on the left. I just thought that they were just too cute to leave out.)