"A8HNA (under construction)" a Athens Travel Page by grkboiler

Athens is the capital of Greece and one of the most historic cities in the world. It is large, spread out, and home to 3 million people. Its roads are like a maze, and many who have lived there for an entire lifetime still have not discovered it all.

The truth is, it doesn't give the best first impression - Athens is crowded and polluted - but it is easy to fall in love with this city. Somewhere between the first glance at the Acropolis, spending all night at the bouzoukia with a bottle of ouzo and dancing a Zeibekiko, and talking over a Greek coffee in a kafeneio, you will understand the Greek way of life and not want to leave.

The area that is now Athens has been inhabited for more than 7,000 years and it had become a powerful city by 1400 BC. In the 6th century BC, Athens was ruled by the wealthy until Solon had his say in 594 BC. He reformed the city until tyrants took over and began to rule.

Once the Persian Empire was defeated by the Athenians, Athens' Golden Age began and Pericles, ruler from 461 BC to 429 BC, completely transformed the city. Tragedies were written by Aeschylus and Sophocles, history was recorded by Xenophon, Herodotus and Thucydides, and the sculptor Pheidias became prominent. Sparta soon became more powerful than Athens after the Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC, and Athens would never recover.

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle came around in the 4th century BC, making Athens a center of philosophy, but in 338 BC, Philip II of Macedon conquered the city.

The Romans ruled after a succession of generals of Alexander the Great, and Athens was a major center of education for Romans. Emperor Justinian closed the schools of philosophy in 529, and the city fell into a drastic decline.

Rulers and invaders followed one after another: Byzantines, Franks, Venetians, and finally the Ottoman Turks, who captured the city in 1456 and ruled for almost 400 years. They turned the Parthenon into a mosque and the Erechteion into a harem.

In 1821, the revolution broke out and Athens changed hands between the Greeks and Turks several times. In 1834, it was named capital of modern Greece, and the new king, Otto, rebuilt the city.

Athens stayed pretty much the same until the 1920s, when about a million Greek refugees from Turkey settled in Athens, causing the city to grow outwards quickly. In WWII, the Nazis took over and thousands of Athenians died of starvation. After the war, a civil war broke out.

In the 1950s, Athens grew even more, with villagers from the islands and mainland searching for work. In 1967, a military junta took over and ruled for 7 years (my dad remembers the tanks rumbling through the city). Elected government took over in 1974. Finally in the 1990s and through the 2004 Olympics, Athens has been successful in redeveloping and transforming the city into a glorious city once again.

I have visited Athens 3 times. Friends who live there and others who have visited since my last trip in 2000 have said it has changed dramatically, especially with the Olympics coming through town. I know the ruins haven't changed much, but I am looking forward to seeing this new Athens next time I return.