Athens

Greece’s capital’s Olympian clean-up effort benefits a new generation of travelers

Claiming the world’s first democracy title, Athens was little more than a village when modern Greece was founded in the 1820s following 400 years of Ottoman rule. The city has since sprawled, ballooning to some four million inhabitants—surpassing Rome—after accommodating a mass influx from Asia Minor in the 1920s; people from the countryside as a result of the 1944–49 civil war, which in turn caused the current concrete carpet of apartment blocks; and most recently, migrant workers from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The “Big Village’s” latest physical transformation is the result of the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Neoclassical buildings were restored, museums revamped, more green and pedestrian zones were carved out, along with modern highways, ring roads, and public transport. Smoke-belching cars and buses were scrapped--all helping to dissipate the notorious pollution cloud hanging over the Athens basin. While it may never be rid of the chaos, traffic jams, and parking problems, historic Athens has once more become a desired travel destination, as the dearth of prime-locale hotel rooms, creeping ever further into the shoulder seasons, attests.

© 2009, Wiley Publishing, Inc.