It hit me looking up at the chipped cornice of the Parthenon over a plate of roasted eel: I had fallen well and truly in love.
There was no mistaking it. Strolling up Dionysiou Areopagitou into the freshly paved historic heart of Athens, I felt quite euphoric.
After a long hiatus my adopted city was stroking my senses again. Under brilliant azure skies, the columns of the Acropolis really did resemble the harp strings so admired by Virginia Woolf.
It wasn’t just the Attic light working its life-affirming magic on the ancient ruins. All of Athens seemed more humane. Even the hawkers and harpies and doughnut-faced merchants of Athinas, the street that conjures the city’s mix of first and third world chaos, appeared rejuvenated. Their brashness had been replaced by broad smiles as they went about the Byzantine business of proffering their earthy Levantine wares.
But then Athenians have a lot to smile about. Thanks to a $5,1billion makeover, timed to coincide with next summer’s Olympics, Athens is not only undergoing a facelift but is improving its quality of life.
Each day some new road, bridge, square or bypass opens. By the time the games return to their ancient birthplace, there will be more embellishments in the form of an estimated 1,65m shrubs and 172 000 newly planted trees.
That is in addition to the $136-million on refurbishing the city’s architecture and giving buildings a coat of paint. ”Athens is probably the host city that will benefit most from the games,” Denis Oswald, the International Olympic Committee’s chief inspector, said recently, wrapping up a key three-day tour.
”It’s not just the new sports venues. Under the pressure of the Olympics infrastructure works are happening that would normally take 20 or 30 years.”
At the centre of this revolution is the 2,5km walkway that now links the city’s rambling ruins. The archaeological park stretches from Plato’s academy to the white marble stadium where, in 1896, the modern Olympics were revived.
As I walked along Dionysiou Areopagitou, marvelling at the Parthenon in all its rugged beauty, it occurred that no single project had had such an effect on Europe’s oldest capital.
Not that long ago it took courage to navigate the polluted, traffic-choked streets of central Athens. Who, after all, wanted to return home with smarting eyes and lungs? But with cars confined to outer ring-roads, such afflictions have been relegated to the past.
As I strolled into the agora, where Socrates contemplated the meaning of existence, into Philopappou and over the hill of the nymphs, it seemed that even the plethora of wild cats and dogs looked healthier.
Indeed, as I stood taking in the crystal waters of the Saronic Gulf beyond the urban sprawl, Athens suddenly seemed like the very best place to be.
No longer are the modern Greeks so weighed down by their past. The transformation of the City of the Gods is proof that they are not only accepting their 3 500-year history but revelling in it for the first time.
As I finished my roasted eel over a glass of resinated wine after the stroll, there seemed no denying that Athens had come that much closer to our idealised image of the classical world. Now, who couldn’t fall in love with that? – Guardian Unlimited Â