Arriving in Athens airport and getting into a taxi is a pleasant experience – open vistas, bright sun, friendly drivers and modern multi-lane highway. Pretty soon the city starts – mainly concrete buildings, excessive gridlocks and unclear lane-changing rules (blinkers recommended but optional), several cars parked bumper-to-bumper in any tiny area that would allow parking (and if not, pedestrian sidewalks are a popular alternative). In residential areas a weird occurrence would be seeing a recently built luxury building next to something rundown and sometimes abandoned, with windows missing, boarded up or sometimes covered in plastic tarp. I guess the gentrification happens one building at a time.
The city is nice, although not all areas are pleasant for walking, and at times it smells dirty. It does not seem like Athenian dog owners are into picking up after their dogs, so walking at night can be adventurous.
Hotels and restaurants advertise the Acropolis view, but being located on a high, isolated hill it’s visible from pretty much any point of the old city.
The city can be magical, with old areas like Plaka, Monastraki, Agora, Syntagma enveloping you in their old-school beauty and overload of tourist shops, all pitching essentially the same products – olive oil, olive wood products, hand-painted ceramics, leather sandals, phallic bottle openers [more research needed] and various clothing with Greek patterns.
Coffee places are numerous, and sometimes stacked on the same corner, next to one another. The options are generally good, with pour-overs and single origins generally available on top of machine-produced espresso drinks.
The restaurants generally open at noon for lunch and around 7 pm for dinner, with dead time between 3 and 7 pm, aside from a few exceptions. Being jet-lagged and slightly behind on time, it took a while to figure out the right schedule. Review-wise, Yelp seemed to be of little help, but Michelin guide and tourist books delivered good recommendations.
Places we visited for food in no particular order:
- Esthio – well-executed Greek comfort food, friendly service and relaxed casual atmosphere, this is one place we didn’t mind coming back to, the menu is just full of good stuff
- Artbistrot at InterContinental – hotel restaurant with convenient schedule (noon to midnight), beautiful lobby restaurant with a piano bar, good wine list and tasty Greek menu. A bit overpriced for the location, but I guess that goes with being the hotel restaurant.
- Zephyros Mikrolimano – located at beautiful marina with quite a few glitzy yachts parked outside. It seems like every restaurant there has some variation of fresh fish priced by the kg, so we ended up at Zephyros due to them being open slightly earlier and the waiter outside being quite friendly and not so pushy on occasional tourists. White-clothed place with a good view of the marina, had a variety of freshly caught fish, as well as everyday grilled and fried foods, we opted for a red snapper.
- To Kafeneio – came recommended as a casual taverna by DK Eyewitness travel guide. The place was pretty busy by the time we got there, with a lot of 4-top tables taken over by parties of 1 or 2 (they don’t seem to be very efficient at space utilization), but the waiter whipped out some kind of table they use for small kids who want to pretend they sit next to the adult table, and seated us in the corner. They had a few daily specials, but it seemed like cold dishes arrived straight from the fridge, so were exceedingly cold, while hot dishes were heated up in a hurry, which made for a pretty uneven bite. Decent food, but nothing special.
- Ergon House Agora – beaitiful atrium restaurant with green walls (growing herbs) in all directions. Focus on all the right things – local ingredients, cooking from scratch, modern Greek cuisine. The wood oven delivers freshly baked breads and their specialty – bread boats filled with various tasty protein. Also came recommended by DK Eyewitness Top 10 book.
- Konstantinidis – just like any other pastry shop, it has required Greek specialties, such as baklava. The specialty, though, is mile-feuille (made in shop and sold by the weight) heavily adorned with rich cream. There are multiple locations around the city, the one we visited didn’t accommodate for seating, so everything was sold for takeout only.
One thing about the service at Greek restaurants is that it’s not particularly proactive, if not slow and detached. Almost every interaction that’s waiter-initiated at a US restaurant – taking an order, refilling the water glass, presenting the bill – is customer-initiated in Athens, which first creates an impression of detached waiters immersed in anything else but their work (like intently watching the oven or talking to a colleague). After a while I’ve learned to either make eye contact or just raise hand to attract attention.
Greeks also tend to linger at the tables longer, even at lunch times, sometimes with multiple bottles of wine opened and conversation flowing.
The transportation system seems decent. It involves several modes of transport – subway, trams, and buses – and allows for multiple options, such as day passes, for a reasonable price. There’s also a bus that goes to the airport (from Syntagma square) that requires its own special ticket, considering it’s a 45-60 min ride.