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Travel Story - Remembering Athens

An ancient city faces new challenges as it prepares for the Summer Games

With less than three months to go before the start of the 2004 Summer Olympic Games – as organizers struggle to fast-track completion of venues, upgrade transportation corridors, and provide housing and security for athletes and spectators – the world's media are focused on Athens. Prolonged construction delays and unresolved logistic details left some observers fearing that the Games, like Zorba's ill-fated logging scheme, were destined to self-destruct in a confusion of last minute glitches. But last month the IOC completed its final inspection and gave Athens the green light. On Aug. 13th the Summer Games will return to the country where they began in 776 BC, and to the city where the first Modern Olympics were held in 1896.

Even though it's been 20 years since Betty and I were in Athens the current flood of news, both good and bad, brings back vivid memories of our visit to southern Greece, and a heightened awareness of how much, and in some cases how little, things have changed since we were there.

We arrived in early August. It was hot and there was a taxi strike. With temperatures hovering in the low 40s our shoes stuck to the softened asphalt of the empty parking lot. A long sweaty walk took us to the nearest trolley, where we wedged in among the other passengers and trundled off in what we thought was the general direction of our hotel. At the end of the line a friendly passenger, who spoke a little English, informed us we should have gone the other way.

An hour later we dragged our packs into the lobby of the Electra Palace, a mid-priced hotel in the heart of old Athens. It boasts a modest roof garden with sweeping views across the city but, except for the Acropolis, the vista is singularly drab. Unlike the magnificent architecture of Classical Greece the clutter of squarish low-rise buildings that sprawl across modern Athens seems totally lacking in character. Trees are sparse, there is little green space, and the distant hills are barely visible through a haze of pollution. We divided our time between visits to the Acropolis, and exploring the narrow, winding streets of the Plaka, both within easy walking distance of our hotel.

The Acropolis, a flat-topped limestone hill which rises 200 feet above the Attica plain, has been inhabited for at least 5,000 years. Its bounding cliffs, easy to defend, made it a natural fortress with commanding views of the surrounding plains and the ocean. Springs, and later wells, provided fresh water for various peoples who lived there until 510 BC, when the Delphic Oracle declared it a holy place of the Gods and banned habitation by mortals.

The magnificent ruins that stand on its surface today have come to symbolize the political and cultural achievements of Greece yet they represent only a tiny interval in Athens’ long and turbulent history. The Parthenon and surrounding structures, crafted from white Pendeli marble, were commissioned by the great democratic leader Pericles during the Classical Period which lasted less than a hundred years. When his grand program of building began in 451 BC Athens was the leading City-State in the Delian League and, having control of the League's treasury, Pericles used the collective wealth to transform the Acropolis into a city of temples worthy of the Gods. But before the grand entryway to the Acropolis was even completed Athens was drawn into the Peloponnesian War, defeated by the rival City-State of Sparta in 404 BC, and the city never regained its former glory.

Standing in front of the magnificent columns of the Parthenon, or marveling at the superb sculptures on the Erechtheion it's difficult to comprehend that 24 centuries have passed since this place was built. The ruins have withstood repeated episodes of war and pillage as Greece was buffeted and overwhelmed by the rise and decline of Eastern and Western empires that periodically occupied the land but never extinguished the spirit of Greek culture. As we descended the deeply worn stairs through the Propylaia on our way back to the busy streets of modern Athens I felt as though time itself was frozen into the white marble – an eternal monument to the brief golden period of Classical Greece.

West of the Acropolis, across the busy Apostolou Pavlou motorway, the Hill of the Pnyx, where Athenians once met to discuss and vote on matters of state, is now used as an outdoor theatre for the son-et-lumiere, the evening sound and light show. While waiting for sunset we stopped at a roadside restaurant with outdoor tables in the shade of vine-covered arbors. A nattily dressed waiter, white towel flung over his shoulder, took our order and dashed off into the traffic. The kitchen, it seemed, was on the other side of the highway. We watched in amazement as waiter after waiter, one hand balancing a tray and the other cautioning drivers, ran the gauntlet of traffic.

At dusk we made our way up to Pnyx Hill. Looking across at the illuminated Acropolis, its monuments seemingly suspended in a dark void, its hard not to experience a sense of awe. During the Sound and Light show the play of lights is synchronized with music, sound effects and historical narration. The visual effect is powerful and guaranteed to leave a lasting memory, but unless you come primed with a good knowledge of Greek history don't expect to get much out of the narrative.

We confined our exploration of the city to the Plaka, the old Turkish quarter that wraps around the northeast slope of the Acropolis. When Athens was declared the capital of Greece in 1834 the Plaka was virtually all that existed and its labyrinth of narrow streets still retain the feeling of a small medieval town. In one of the local squares the smell of fresh roasted pistachios in a street vendors cart mingles with the hearty laughter of people sharing a drink in a tiny cafe. We find a comfortable table and sit out the heat of the afternoon nursing a cold beer, cracking pistachios, and people-watching in the shade of a grape arbor.

As I look at the images coming out of Athens today – the mix of modern highways and narrow medieval streets, magnificent classic architecture and tacky modern buildings – the city looks much the same as I remember. The greatest change remains hidden but, sadly, can not be dismissed. Back in the kinder gentler world of the ’80s we were naive enough to think that collective logic would find a peaceful compromise to ethnic and religious differences. That was before the senseless horror of 9/11 and the misguided "war on terrorism" launched the world into a new kind of conflict in which the principal weapon is fear. And not even the Olympic Games are being spared the collateral damage of anxiety.

Last month, as Athens prepared to host the first post-9/11 Summer Games, three small bombs exploded in the city. Although there were no casualties and the attack was dismissed as being unrelated to the Olympics the IOC has, nevertheless, taken the precaution to secure a US$170-million insurance policy to defray costs if the Games have to be cancelled.

To assure this does not happen an unprecedented effort is being made to secure the safety of athletes and spectators. The Greek organizers have allocated more than a billion US dollars to security. A cadre of more than 50,000 local soldiers and police will be aided by security personnel from other nations. Venues will be monitored by 1,400 security cameras and 32 radiation detectors, the airspace secured by a fleet of helicopters and an AWACS radar aircraft, and athletes from "high risk" nations may be given continuous one-on-one protection by an armed guard.

We can only hope the Olympic spirit can rise above this massive stand-off between terrorism and security. Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyianni is optimistic – "We want to make the people feel the festivities and we want them to take part in the festivities," she says. "We'll have, of course, to keep a balance between the security measures and the festive and the joyful atmosphere. I hope we will succeed. It will be important for the world for us to succeed."

As future Olympic hosts it will be specially important for Vancouver and Whistler.