Art is Thriving Amongst Greek Crisis

"Beyond the depressing headlines, there’s a manic side of Greece today, especially in Athens, which has an energy not seen elsewhere in the slow-moving Mediterranean. Art galleries are thriving. Street artists paint tiny gems amid the growing downtown squalor. A new generation of filmmakers has captured the air of uncertainty by making the familiar strange. Athens is an anarchic, overcaffeinated mess of a city, filled with oleander and concrete, jasmine and car exhaust: part Milan and part Karachi, a strange combination of European sophistication and third world chaos. The economic crisis has accentuated the divide".

From an article by Richard Donadio appearing in the New York Times. Read it here.

Nostalgic old Athens

The tragedy of Athens and its urban landscape is that it was meant to contain only a 10th of the population it holds today. The nostalgic tour within its wide spaces and neoclassical buildings confirms that only careful planning can effectuate beautiful cities.

Music on the clip by Manos Hadjidakis

Goodbye Salonica

There's something oddly romantic in the city of my childhood. The trees are swaying in the spring wind as people and cars cross the streets with an ant-like pace. Seen from above, everything loses some of its urgency, of its sense of drama too. Cyclists and pedestrians pause on the brink of the pier, as if they're contemplating jumping off. But they're not. The sea is flowing as ever.
Only the statues, the courts and ancient walls don't move. Silence amidst the noise. How Greek is silence? Very, contrary to appearences, I'd wager.

Addio Città clip by Emmanouil Papadopoulos on Youtube
Original Music: Calexico-Departure In F Minor