Athens is crowded. Where else should you go?

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Athens is crowded. Where else should you go?’

Lilah Raptopoulos
This is Life and Art from FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos.

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Today we’re going to Athens. I spent a lot of time in Greece. My father’s from there. And the last time I was in Athens, it was really clear to me that things had changed. The city had a lot more tourists. My colleague Eleni Varvitsioti lives in Athens. She’s lived there for years and she recently wrote an essay about this tourist influx and how it’s especially affecting the city centre. She’s come on to talk about it and we’ll also chat through other places that you can go if you visit Greece, where you won’t be stuck surrounded by a million people.

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Eleni, welcome to Life and Art. Kalos irthate. We’re so happy to have you here.

Eleni Varvitsioti
Hi, Lilah. I’m so happy to be with you here today.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So you are the FT’s Greece and Cyprus correspondent by profession. But I’m curious first, if you could tell me about your personal relationship with Athens.

Eleni Varvitsioti
I am an Athenian. I’ve been born in Athens, lived in Athens most of my life. I went abroad to study and worked for a few years in Brussels. But I have been living for the past 16 years in its historic centre just underneath the Acropolis. And I think like in all long-term relationships, I have been falling in and out of love with Athens for the past years. So now we’re in a rough patch in our relationship. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
So how would you describe the problem in a couple of sentences now? What is the problem that sort of bothers you or worries you?

Eleni Varvitsioti
The problem is that there are so many tourists in such a small radius, such a small place, and you feel like the city, the city centre, the historic city centre has shifted from a partly touristic, partly residential area to a simply touristic area where residents don’t have the space to live. I’ll give you some examples. In the past four years, in a narrow street of Syntagma, which is the main square of Athens, a very narrow street, I counted five new hotels which have opened.

All investment is catered to tourists. You feel like the city is losing its soul. It’s not just that in my neighbourhood in Plaka, which is like the most rested place in Athens, the hardware store became another restaurant for tourists or another rental car replaced the corner clothes store that they had. At night the neighbourhood terraces, which were of previously residential buildings, are now turned to Airbnbs and hotels and have become bars where music plays loud. And I’m really worried that the experience that we’re offering as Athenians is not authentic and true. It’s not wholesome, hearty Greek experiences.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Can you tell me a little about how you’ve seen things change since you were a kid to now?

Eleni Varvitsioti
I tell you, when I first moved here in the centre, which was like 16 years ago, things were very different in this neighbourhood. The Acropolis Museum had not been inaugurated back then. But I have to say that I could feel when I first moved here in the centre that tourism was shyly making its first appearance and I was very excited about the prospects of my city. I felt that the city had not gotten the deserved attention and was more seen as a necessary stop for visitors on their way to some Aegean island. And this was about to change. And I have to confess that when Airbnb started, I was one of the few first people to list my apartment and I was willing to move to my parents’ house every time I had a visitor. I found that it was a great opportunity to show to my guest how amazing my Athens was.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. But then what happened?

Eleni Varvitsioti
But then in 2009, the economic crisis hit Greece, and for the next six years, you would have the most evident signs of a country in decay. In the city centre, you had the weekly strikes of all kinds opposing the austerity measures that were imposed in the country by traders. But as the years went by and the country was leaving behind the decade-long crisis, things started picking up.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. And then when did that change? When did you start to feel like your city was getting kind of overrun?

Eleni Varvitsioti
I think immediately after that, 2020 started picking up, ’21, ’22. And this year, I think it was really a tipping point.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And then quickly, why has there been such a huge boom of tourists in Athens recently? I know Greece is a little cheaper than other places in Europe. Is it just that? Is it that it just got popular?

Eleni Varvitsioti
I think it’s a great city break that people had not discovered in the past. I really think that cheap flights helped. I really also think that Instagram has helped. I mean, some influencers, which might sound ridiculous, but I think it really has played a role and Athens has an amazing weather also all year round. And the food is great. People are very friendly. As you said, it’s cheaper than other destinations so why not?

Lilah Raptopoulos
And Athens has become, I’ve noticed that Athens has become a place that people realise is like a, it’s a cool cosmopolitan city. It’s not just a stop. That it’s maybe cooler than the city you live in and you kind of want to check it out.

Eleni Varvitsioti
I think it’s, you nailed it, it has a coolness. It has a vibrant vibe. You feel that things are happening in the city right and left, unexpected things. It’s definitely not a sleepy town. Right. And also, you take a walk around Athens and feels like visiting an open-air museum. It has an unpretentious grace to it. I think. There are many galleries or many exhibitions. There’s an art scene that’s booming, so I think that gives an edge to the city as well.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Mm hmm. Yeah. So there are a lot of smaller cities like Athens that are dealing with more tourism. In places like Barcelona and Lisbon. Is it different in Athens? Like what is unique about Athens versus those other places?

Eleni Varvitsioti
I think two things are different in Athens. First, that it’s something new happening here. It hasn’t been going on for years as it’s in Venice, let’s say, or the other places you mentioned. And the second thing, which differentiates Athens from other capitals, is a small area where all tourists are found. It’s a small radius around the Acropolis. The tourists, like, for example, in Rome, there are many historical, important historical sites spread out throughout the city. Here it’s all in the centre of Athens and underneath the Acropolis, and that makes it much harder.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, I don’t think people realise that the Acropolis really is like smack in the centre of Athens. It’s on this huge hill, so you can see it from everywhere in the city. And so it means that your biggest tourist attraction, which is one of the most important historic monuments in human history, is yeah, it’s in the middle of everything. It’s sort of like, it makes sense that it would clog the city.

Eleni Varvitsioti
Exactly.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I imagine the other reason that Athens is getting more popular is because there are more people investing in Athens. Right? Like there’s more money coming in.

Eleni Varvitsioti
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you have, and that’s a real issue. I’m really worried that there’s going to be a gap between wealthy and less wealthy, which is widening. And one feels that there’s a lot of wealth that has come to the country, but more from foreigners, from Europeans, from Israelis, Turkish, Chinese, who are buying properties which locals can’t afford.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So what do you want to happen? You know, like I imagine it’s a balance because Greece has gone through a lot of hardship economically over the past couple of decades. And tourism is good for it, right? Like, we want people to come to Greece. And Athens is amazing. And the Acropolis is one of the most incredible places I’ve ever been. And people should still go to it.

Eleni Varvitsioti
Exactly. I don’t want to be seen as somebody who doesn’t want tourism. Of course, tourism is one of the most important industries in our country. It’s about 25 per cent of our GDP. It is a huge amount. And so many jobs and people are relying on that. And it’s an amazing place to to have tourists. And Greeks are, by nature, one of the most hospitable people and caring and helpful and open-hearted and warm-hearted.

But I feel like there should be some more planning on what’s happening as a resident in the historic centre to look at each neighbourhood and see how many Airbnbs are there, how many coffee shops are there, how many restaurants? Do we need more of those? Should we boost activity, economic activity that could help out the locals? Do we need, like, mini-markets or food stalls or dry cleaning or like have some kind of planning. You don’t have a whole neighbourhood that’s only Airbnb or only restaurants. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. OK. So Eleni, I would love to shift the conversation to other places that people can go when they visit Greece. It’s been a drum I’ve been beating forever that the country is so much more than just the Acropolis and Mykonos and Santorini. Maybe we can tag team some alternate itineraries for our listeners. What about Athens? Where should people go beside doing the influencer photos in front of the Parthenon?

Eleni Varvitsioti
I mean, of course you’re going to go the Parthenon, right? But please, it’s really worth taking the time and drive a bit outside Athens. People don’t really realise that in a short, half-an-hour drive, about 16 to 20 kilometres, you can find yourself in amazing beaches, whatever beaches you want, long sandy beaches, small coves, full of people, without any people, doing watersports, just chilling.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Skinny dipping.

Eleni Varvitsioti
And skinny dipping. Exactly. There’s so many places that you could explore that. And also, there’s an amazing temple which is dedicated to the sea of god Poseidon, which is also by the coast in Sounio and has the most amazing sunset that one can see, and I would definitely recommend doing that. And then there’s the bonus underneath that that you can enjoy the temple and have great fresh fish.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. Can I make a pitch?

Eleni Varvitsioti
Yes.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. For Greece outside of Athens, I’m going to pitch Thessaloniki. It’s the second-biggest city. It’s in the north. It’s the city my dad grew up in. I have a lot of family there. But I pitch it because it’s built on the port, so it’s like right up against the Aegean Sea. So when you’re walking in like a very urban setting, you’re walking along this boardwalk and people are sitting and they’re watching the sunset and they’re drinking in cafes and they’re eating Tito bitters and they’re smoking and complaining and it’s, like, amazing. And then also, like much of Greece and like Athens, it’s this important centre for so much history, for the Roman Empire, for the Byzantine Empire. So as you’re walking, you come across these amazing ruins. And then also it just, because it was a melting pot for so many centuries with so many cultures, it has some of the best food I’ve ever had.

Eleni Varvitsioti
It has one of the best food. People are extremely hospitable. And if our listeners are found to suddenly get on a if you’ve been, but it’s really worth next time you’re here, go to Vergina. Vergina is the archaeological site which is pretty amazing. It’s the the tomb, it’s the grave of Philip the Great, who’s the father of Alexander the Great, and it’s actually the actual tomb. You walk inside, you walk down in the tomb and you can see everything that...

Lilah Raptopoulos
It’s so wild.

Eleni Varvitsioti
It’s extremely wild. You see all the things that they buried. This king, Hellenistic king, back in the day. And it’s really well-preserved. It has amazing jewellery and the setup is really amazing. I think it’s worth a drive from Thessaloniki. It’s like half an hour drive.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. What about islands? I have to say, Eleni, asking Greeks for advice about islands is like one of the most unbelievable experiences. Outrageous, infuriating, hilarious. Everyone has an opinion. You’ll say, OK, we’re going to go to Corfu. And they’ll say, oh, don’t go to Corfu. It’s too Italian-looking. And then you say, OK, well, maybe they say, go to Milos. And you say, don’t. I don’t know. The moral of the story is every Greek island is gorgeous and beautiful and you’re going to be blown away by the water and blown away by the food and blown away by the people. But if you were to give one or two suggestions? What would you give? (laughter)

Eleni Varvitsioti
(laughter) I mean, it’s exactly as you described. It gets so personal and people are so passionate about their favourite islands and you don’t want to agree with a Greek. But my favourite islands are Sifnos. Sifnos is one of the Cycladic Islands. It’s not really touristic, although it’s full of French people. It’s as if...some islands are discovered by different countries. Sifanos has been discovered by the French. It has an amazing culinary tradition. One of the most famous cooks in Greece, the first guy who ever wrote a cookbook, Mr Tselementes, was from there.

And there is tons of hiking. People love to take hiking paths, and they have them very well-preserved. So you can actually walk around the whole island by really nice paths. And the beaches, you can dive in crystal water beaches, and it’s an island that the locals really take care of it. It’s super clean. Everything is like very well-maintained. And they have a pride. Sifnians have a pride to themselves and to their island. They are very famous for their ceramics.

Lilah Raptopoulos
They have amazing pottery. Yeah.

Eleni Varvitsioti
So it’s a place that really combines a lot of things. And I go every summer. I can’t think of my summer without Sifnos.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, incredible. I would suggest, there’s two little islands in the north called Skopelos and Skiathos that are really beautiful. But the island that I went to this time for the first time is Crete. I never wanted to visit because I was worried that it would be too big and not feel like an island. But it’s really, if you can avoid the crowds of tourists, it’s really a special place. Like we spent a lot of time in the villages in the centre and then on the beaches along the southern coast, which is the Libyan Sea. And it was just like kind of unexplored and wild and felt like the mood.

Eleni Varvitsioti
I’m so happy for you had such a great time.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, Eleni, this is amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Eleni Varvitsioti
Thank you so much for having me, Lilah.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show this week. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I recommend you check out our shownotes. They are full of great stuff. We have Eleni’s piece. We have a list of all the recommendations that we mentioned about Grece. We have discounts for a subscription to the Financial Times. We also have ways to get in touch with us, whether that’s by email or following us on Instagram or X or all those things. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos, and here’s my talented team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco. With original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer. Cheryl Brumley is the global head of Audio. Have a wonderful week and we’ll find each other again on Friday.