The first walk after our arrival in Athens took us just around the immediate area of our hotel in Monastiraki. Directly below the steep rocks of the Acropolis, between the urban districts of Plaka and Monastiraki, we unexpectedly came across a small neighbourhood of simple, cubic, white terrace-roofed houses, steep stairs and winding alleys, bougainvillea and flower pots. The district reminded us more of an old Cycladic village than the rest of the surrounding Athens neighbourhoods with their sophisticated villas and ancient ruins, multi-storey commercial and residential buildings, wide streets and heavy traffic – and all that in a prime central location in the city centre with a view? It was, so to speak, an anachronistic paradox (a contradiction out of its time). Read more