Finding Pretty: Greece Part I

Elegance and beauty is found in the simple-lined Ionic capital fragment on display in the ancient Athenian agora
 

In the City

Athens in not a pretty town.  Like any large urban centre it sprawls out from its chaotic core, and in the summer it just feels hot and crowded and sooty.  Everyone told me so and everyone was right.  But I was looking for the pretty.  In the past, everywhere I've travelled, I've found it.  And it hasn't been just one aspect of a place, say the breath-taking architecture or a sweeping landscape, that has thrilled or inspired me, but rather the impact of the whole.  I have been dazed, excited, overwhelmed and pleased by such vastly different settings as the deep American south west to the northern reaches of the English countryside and many locales in between.  But where to find it here?  I just wasn't feeling it.

A small snapshot of pretty: a street in Athens bordering
the Acropolis where well-maintained buildings sport
soft pastel shades and ornate ironwork

To be fair, I only spent a couple of days in the capital, but rather quickly a pattern emerged and I realised, that for me, the parts are far greater than the whole.  For starters, no one can argue with the awe-inspiring power and grace of the buildings on the Acropolis.



Neatly stacked architectural fragments with Greek inscriptions sit before
the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena; built between
447 and 432 B.C., it is the earliest Classical structure on the Acroplois.

Pediment detail.

On the north side of the summit hill, the Erechteion.

A southern view of the Erectheion with the famed Caryatids,
the six maidens who support the roof of the porch.

The solid heft of the Doric order.

Capturing grace like no others before.

And once I got beyond the Acropolis, I stumbled upon many other sites of beauty and wonder, like this old Greek Orthodox church with tufts of grass growing along its roof line, giving it a forsaken air.  Inside were whitewashed wall studded with jewel-toned murals and the simplest of altars.

As I moved through the city, I began to see things like this...

contemporary artistic expressions of this time and place in Greece's history.  And least you think these are simply defaced walls, the work of bored hoodlums, Athens is known for its thriving graffiti community that tackles complex social and political issues head on.  What could be more engaging, provoking, informative and adventuresome?

At dusk one evening, as we made our way far off the beaten track and through the back alleys of the Plaka district, the old town quarter of Athens, we came across this:

And just out of sight, around the corner, was the artisit.  Here was a work in progress!  After a late dinner we returned to see if he had completed his work, and this is what we discovered...

It was at this moment I knew: I had found my pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images D. Sleziak