The cry of every commuter.
The locals say that the Olympic Games evidently got the Athens Metro built. I am grateful for that. It is dual-signed in Greek and English. The trains are clean and quiet. The longest wait we had for a train was two minutes. The stations are well marked and some – like Syntagma – are small museums.
We did not use buses or trams, but I did notice that that the three trams lines are called Platonous, Aristotleous, and Thukydideous.
For further information:
http://www.athensguide.com/journalists/articles/metro.htm
http://www.theculturedtraveler.com/Archives/Jul2001/Athens_Metro.htm
http://www.ametro.gr/#
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Metro
Earlier I referred to Omonia Square as Ammonia Square. This is as good a place as any to explain that statement. First, it is just my general tendency to bestow nicknames on things, especially when I cannot pronounce them, or worse have learned to mispronounce them. Second, we stayed one night in a hotel a few steps from Omonia Square, and I can now confirm the statements in all three of the guidebooks I studied that Omonia Square is the seediest part of the city. ‘Seedy’ means dirty and smelly – bring on that ammonia – and noisy into all hours of the following day. I found many pictures on the on the web but none capture the true filth of the place. Our driver gave us strict instruction on what to do and not to while staying there, and we complied by going to bed exhausted at about 8 p.m.
We booked our room at the last minute and were grateful to get it, but it was on the mezzanine level at the front, a catchment for the boom box music from Ali Baba and the forty plus thieves lounging outside. “Albanians,” our driver said through gritted teeth. Greeks don’t have John Howard to blame everything on but they do have Albanians. The room was bigger and with better fittings and large beds than the Hotel Adrian, but our stay was far less comfortable through no fault of the hotel. By the way we recommend the Hotel Adrian.
I made the booking using my mobile while standing outside the museum at Marathon, which by the way is not near the site. It was pretty handy to be able to make that call at short notice while standing in a field in Greece. On another day when Kate and I split up and she went off to a business meeting. We used the mobiles for SMS to co-ordinate.
Captain Kirk was right; those little communicators sure did catch on. Don’t get it (again) and want to, then click on http://www.amazon.com/How-William-Shatner-Changed-World/dp/B000M9BSBO
Athens Metro stations, unlike the metro in Seoul which was also built for an Olympics, the Greek ones do not have plumbing. Traveler beware. Seoul stations do have plumbing and they need, but don’t get, continuous applications of ammonia. However that is enough on what Aristotle delicately called ‘the essential tasks.’