I spent the last few weeks of April in Greece, visiting old friends in Athens, exploring the island of Syros with my friend Daniel, and a week with the adorable Panos and his mom in their village in Messenia.
Daniel and I stayed in Psyri, in a fairly fabulous AirBnB overlooking the Acropolis. Psyri, just north of the Monastiraki metro station, was settled in the 19th century by immigrants from Naxos. The notorious inhabitants of the area became known as the kontsavakides – pimps and criminals with drooping mustaches, pointy boots, and weapons concealed in their wide sashes. In the 20th century, Psiri became a working class neighborhood with leather workshops and tiny factories, which in the 1990s paved the way to the scene today: trendy nightclubs, bars, galleries, cafes and restaurants, and fabulous graffiti. Lord Byron penned his “Maid of Athens” poem here:
Oh maid of Athens, ere I part
Give oh give me back my heart
Unable to get to Syros because of the Seaman’s Union strike, we had an extra day in Athens, so took the metro to the port of Piraeus and trekked over to the archaeological museum there. Hardly any visitors and a whopping four life-sized archaic and classical bronzes. This museum gets few visitors, and their collection is dynamite. There’s an ancient amphitheater out back, as well as fascinating funerary sculpture.
On to Syros…