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Athens Beyond The Acropolis

Kathleen Peddicord by Kathleen Peddicord
Jul 24, 2013
in Retirement/Living
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The Acropolis in Athens, Greece.
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Athens Is Sad

“The sculptures of Ancient Greece reflect the mood of the people at the time they were made,” our guide explained as we drove from downtown Athens to the Acropolis. “When the ancient Greeks were happy, their statues smiled.”

If the Greeks were making statues now, they wouldn’t be smiling. The mood in Athens these days is most optimistically described as melancholy. The guidebook I bought in the airport, when describing Greece’s capital city, speaks of “radical urban renewal” and “conspicuous wealth.”

Surely it was written before The Crisis, as every Greek we’ve met has referred to the current state of affairs in their country. Today’s Athens is a sad place where the dumpsters are overflowing with garbage and the parks are overgrown with weeds. Municipal services have been suspended, and now cuts are being made to the police force.

“Look at these tavernas along the sea,” our guide remarked later in the day as we traveled along the coast from the Acropolis to the Temple of Poseidon. “This is one of the most popular beach spots in this country. This is July. Today is Saturday. Yet these tavernas are empty. Two years ago, on a day like today, these tavernas would have been full. Now we have The Crisis.”

Quiet and empty…that is the coast outside Athens.

Dirty, polluted, grimy, gritty, crowded, and demoralized, that is the impression of Athens itself.

“This city built for the cult of Athena was intended for 500,000,” explained our guide. “Today, 5 million live here.”

Viewed from any elevation, the primary impression of Athens, as a result, is density. Apartment building upon apartment building up every hillside.

As our guide pointed out, this is high season. In Venice, where we’ve just come from, we battled the requisite camera-toting crowds. Here, we have the coast outside Athens nearly to ourselves. In the city, shops are closed, buildings are vacant, and windows are broken.

Regardless, just beyond and always in the background is the sparkling Aegean, suggesting, as our guide put it, that “The particulars of today’s Athens are irrelevant.” The fundamental appeals of this part of the world are eternal.

They are also both natural and manmade. For, here, in Europe’s oldest capital, Pericles and his crews built some of the most important and impressive structures of all Western civilization.

If the architects of Ancient Greece were the fathers of their trade, you can’t help but wonder as you make your way out to see their handiwork, still standing, still awe-inspiring more than two millennia later, what happened to their sons? Driving around Athens and along its nearby coastline, I didn’t see any structure of architectural note built in more recent history. Non-classical Athens is non-descript.

My guidebook describes the experience of climbing around the Acropolis as majestic. On this point, it does not exaggerate and will never be dated. Seeing the Parthenon, the Odeon, and the place where the Agora stood is worth the trip, for sure.

But, having seen those sights, would it be a good idea to stick around? Lief and I are on vacation, embracing our tourist roles. Still, we can’t help but consider each destination we’re visiting from our usual perspective. So, here in Athens, we ask ourselves the question: Would this be an interesting place to think about retiring? Or investing in an apartment?

I got the feeling that many folks here would like to sell whatever property they’ve got and that a buyer with cash could probably name his price. But cheap isn’t necessarily a good deal.

“This is my kind of place,” Lief remarked with a smile when he returned from the corner shop with sodas and snacks. “This has got to be the cheapest bottle of Coke I’ve bought in Europe since the dawn of the euro. And we’re in the heart of the tourist district.”

Cheap real estate and cheap soda pop. Reasons enough to hang around?

If we were to spend more time in Athens, I don’t know what we’d do with ourselves. After you’ve seen what this city’s founders built for themselves (and for all us tourists since), you’re left with modern Athens. We’re passing through and passing judgment quickly. But, as far as we can tell, Athens summer 2013 isn’t a place worth getting to know better.

Maybe the islands have more to offer. We’re on our way to Mykonos.

Kathleen Peddicord

Continue Reading: Will Thailand Allow Foreigners To Own Land In The Future?

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Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord

Kathleen Peddicord has covered the live, retire, and do business overseas beat for more than 30 years and is considered the world's foremost authority on these subjects. She has traveled to more than 75 countries, invested in real estate in 21, established businesses in 7, renovated historic properties in 6, and educated her children in 4.

Kathleen has moved children, staff, enterprises, household goods, and pets across three continents, from the East Coast of the United States to Waterford, Ireland... then to Paris, France... next to Panama City, where she has based her Live and Invest Overseas business. Most recently, Kathleen and her husband Lief Simon are dividing their time between Panama and Paris.

Kathleen was a partner with Agora Publishing’s International Living group for 23 years. In that capacity, she opened her first office overseas, in Waterford, Ireland, where she managed a staff of up to 30 employees for more than 10 years. Kathleen also opened, staffed, and operated International Living publishing and real estate marketing offices in Panama City, Panama; Granada, Nicaragua; Roatan, Honduras; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; and Paris, France.

Kathleen moved on from her role with Agora in 2007 and launched her Live and Invest Overseas group in 2008. In the years since, she has built Live and Invest Overseas into a successful, recognized, and respected multi-million-dollar business that employs a staff of 35 in Panama City and dozens of writers and other resources around the world.

Kathleen has been quoted by The New York Times, Money magazine, MSNBC, Yahoo Finance, the AARP, and beyond. She has appeared often on radio and television (including Bloomberg and CNBC) and speaks regularly on topics to do with living, retiring, investing, and doing business around the world.

In addition to her own daily e-letter, the Overseas Opportunity Letter, with a circulation of more than 300,000 readers, Kathleen writes regularly for U.S. News & World Report and Forbes.

Her newest book, "How to Retire Overseas: Everything You Need to Know to Live Well (for Less) Abroad," published by Penguin Random House, is the culmination of decades of personal experience living and investing around the world.

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