Any street that goes somewhere -- and more than a few do not -- is likely to be clogged with traffic. Cars, many the size of golf carts, are parked everywhere, their owners indifferent to the consequences: a mere $6 for a parking ticket. At midnight, the din of jackhammers competes with honking horns in Constitution Square. A windy day is a delight, even in late January, for its ability to whisk away smog that often hangs like a shroud over temples built of white marble that long ago was nearly as brilliant as the sun.
To be sure, many thousands of laborers are battling an intractable deadline to ready Athens for its Aug. 13 curtsy before the world. There is so much construction going on, we would not have been surprised to see Boston police officers on detail munching spanakopita. Yet the construction workers seem like a fraction of the numbers crowding Athenian cafes during the workday.
A little inconvenience seems trifling in a city where the enthusiasm for life's pleasurable pursuits is so infectious that visitors are easily swept up in it. If Athens itself seems dingy, outdated, provincial, and uninterested in how it will be perceived by a worldwide audience, its people are surely the opposite: For the most part, they are youthful (even those who are not young), fashionable, attuned to the outside world, and surprisingly friendly and outgoing. Many of them speak English.Even on weeknights, streets, cafes and restaurants are jammed with people long after the hour that workaday Americans have gone to bed.
At Cellier, a trendy bistro near Constitution Square, much of the dinner crowd arrives after midnight. In Athens, many theatergoers dine after the play. Post-midnight traffic snarls are commonplace. It's nearly impossible to feel alone here: More than a third of the country's population lives in Athens. It's no wonder that tourists to Greece seek beauty and serenity elsewhere.
