A gorgeous morning today, which we started by taking breakfast in the roof garden of our hotel. We had decided to spend the day around the Acropolis today and visit the new Acropolis Museum, which is being finished right now. We walked from our hotel towards the Acropolis and in about 35 minutes we were approaching the Plaka district. This is a lovely old part of Athens and most of its streets have been closed to traffic (though one should still keep a watchful eye for a speeding motorcycle or delivery truck that are found in even pedestrian malls). In the past, the Plaka was the nightclub district, but most of the clubs closed down when the government outlawed amplified music in the area in the seventies in an effort to get rid of undesirables. The strategy was very successful and it is now an area of restaurants, Jewellery stores tourist shops, and cafés. Though it is quite commercialised it still has a small neighbourhood feel and is arguably the nicest neighbourhood in central Athens.
The Anafiotika is a part of Plaka which reminds one of an Aegean island village at the foot of the Acropolis! The area owes its existence to the wishes of Otto the first king of Greece. Upon coming to Greece from Bavaria, Otto decided to build himself a palace. Wanting this palace to be solidly built, he enquired as to who were the best builders in the country. He was no sooner informed that the people of Anafi, a small island in the Cyclades, were famous for their building skills, than he invited the best of them to the capital, to start work on the Palace. The builders had to have a place to live while works lasted. Knowing that it would be years before they set eyes on their beloved Anafi, and being quite homesick for it, they decided to recreate it, at the foot of the Acropolis. So, they built small white houses in the exact style they used in their home village. And there they remain. Anafiotika, meaning the Anafians’ neighborhood, is a unique and very charming neighbourhood at the highest point of the Plaka area.
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