The Canaways Abroad: backtracking to Athens

Planning the onward trip from Athens I felt like Forrest Gump opening a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to find inside.

View from the Parthenon

That’s the sensation we got looking up all the possible flights we could take out of Athens – international trains stopped running last year and buses are proving hard to research with no timetables in English and a different story from everyone you ask – that you could reach all these exciting, new cities just with a click of the mouse.

Except it wasn’t that easy, because Tirana, Albania, was proving too expensive to reach by plane and, even if we could face the 13-15 hour bus journey, no-one could tell us where the bus left from. Travelling via Corfu seemed an option for a while, until we realized the ferry service from Patra wasn’t up to speed yet (despite a few packed cities, it’s still not high tourist season yet).

Our second choice, Montenegro, was proving just as elusive within budget and time constraints.

Flea market Athens with Dee and Shirley

Stuff it, we thought, we’ll go elsewhere.

So that’s how we ended up in the Serbian capital of Belgrade last week, after a two-hour flight that took in views of the snowy peaks of Mt Olympus, the rocky peninsulas of Thessalonika, the mountains of Macedonia and a bird’s eye view of its capital, Skopje.

All because I couldn’t handle the idea of a second day in Athens.

After the laid-back, clean, picturesque setting of Paros, Athens proved a sensory overkill, in all the worst possible ways. A lot of people sleeping on the street (and performing all other bodily functions on the streets, too) and, as John describes it, walking through the morning streets felt like being on the set of Shaun of the Dead, with zombie-like creatures at every turn.

Typical buildings, Athens

The city looks very unloved and its people discontent, with many resorting to self-medication to ease the pain.

“I will stay and watch my city die,” declared the taxi driver who took us to the airport, after explaining that he couldn’t join his cousin in Melbourne because he was divorced and it would mean leaving his 10-year-old son.

The elections of May 3 weren’t seen as offering much hope to the people we spoke to, either, with most describing the options as ‘disappointing’.

“Nothing changes,” was the phrase used by both our taxi driver and Vasili, from Santorini. “Maybe a new face here or there, but behind it’s all the same.”

Greek sandals

Ironic sentiments from the birthplace of democracy.

However, we did enjoy seeing the main monuments from the top of a double-decker tourist bus (which we usually avoid but distances and temperature meant it was the easiest option) and exploring the Acropolis, although it was the most crowded site we’ve visited to date and I think we were a bit spoiled by the quality of the prehistoric, Roman and Hellenistic ruins in Turkey, many of which are worthy of as much attention as the Acropolis. I was actually more impressed by the story of building the Stoa of Zeus, which is in a less impressive site near the centre of town, but which took 600+ years to complete.

Stoa of Zeus, Athens

Athena’s temple took about a tenth of that, but its position overlooking ‘her’ city is certainly awe-inspiring.

We were in Athens on a Sunday, staying in a retro hotel (authentically old-fashioned, not artificially contrived) but in a seedy part of town and, as we escaped the mid-afternoon heat in our room, we could hear the (99%-male) crowd in the taverna down the street gradually getting more and more rowdy until we decided we might stay indoors for dinner. We haven’t felt like that in any city before.

So by 10am the next day we were in Belgrade, staying in a tiny hostel room set in a crowded apartment block with the most archaic lift I’ve ever seen and set around a central ‘void’ that echoed up a zillion partying voices from other floors as we tried to sleep, preparing for an early morning train to Sarajevo the next day.

Gridlock, Athens

But it was in the heart of the city, so an excellent base to explore the meager offerings in the market (very cheap and reasonably fresh but quite limited: polyester clothes, cleaning stuff, fruit and veg [apples, cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber and some leafy green the staples], and one more interesting stall with an old buy selling bags of dried herbal tea mixes), the bohemian quarter with its the Sava and Tisa rivers, forming the Danube, a pretty park with a touristy craft market, where I bought an embroidered shirt, and the many wide boulevards and avenues where Belgradians relax with a coffe, cigarette, meal, cigarette, or beer and cigarette at ridiculously cheap prices (for us).

Belgrade city walls

The currency is startling at first, with the cost of a (large, 500ml) beer 150 dinars – until you realize it converts to less than 1.50 Euro or $2.

But if the cost of living is low, so too is the standard; most of the tourists seemed to be from neighbouring, former East-bloc countries and English is not widely spoken, few of the shops I saw offered much beyond the basics of life and, according to a TV cameraman we met (working as a builder’s labourer for want of ‘real’ work), most people work long hours for little pay and fewer opportunities.

We were there on the eve of the May Day holiday, though, and can bear witness to the citizens ability to enjoy themselves. In a city where Big Brother still casts a shadow (our hostel had to register our presence with the police), we couldn’t imagine these free-dressing, colourful characters submitting to any authoritarian overlord. In wonderful spring weather, the streets were packed with people out enjoying themselves – keeping it nice – and, from the train the next day we saw hordes of happy campers out making the most of the sun, good food and company in the shade of homes, vineyards, trees by the river or even just under a shade tarp on the edge of a ploughed field.

Belgrade fromthe air

Yet after Greece it was noticeably organized, clean and orderly, in the city as well as the countryside. Not a scrap of farmland seemed wasted from what we saw from the train, although the plentiful hedges and copses seem to support a good level of wildlife – we could hear songbirds all along the tracks.

OK I’m rambling so here’s some brief word associations:

PAROS – good coffee, cute villages, sun-dried mackerel (who knew it could be so yummy?), sunsets over the harbour, mussels with haloumi, marble quarries, wild sage. Byzantine Way – I still need to find out what that was all about.

ATHENS – Zombies, gridlocked traffic, graffiti, run-down, honey and yogurt, crowded, dirt and cigarettes.

Belgrade fast food

BELGRADE – cheap, sunny, skinny people, meat and potatoes, beer, river houseboats, clean, orderly (pedestrian traffic lights count down the seconds til they change to curb impatience), horse chestnut trees, Cyrillic.

TRAIN VIEWS – Flat plains at first (inspiration for Terry Pratchett’s Sto Lat?), wheatfields, cabbages, limewashed fruit trees, chalet-style houses, corn storage sheds, tall trees (pine, sycamore, elm, ash, linden, poplar, beech, birch), barbecues, chalet-style mosques, cigarettes, rubbish dumped along river, broad rivers and high mountains.