Understand

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Visitors today may be shocked to find a city nothing like they had imagined. A large, overwhelming proportion of the city and its nearest suburbs are subject to bad urban planning and unimaginative 1970s architecture. There are few green spaces in the central areas of the city, and the urban sprawl does an injustice to the city's glorious past.

Athens was just a small provincial village when it was chosen in the middle of the 19th century to serve as the national capital of the modern Greek State. With a prestigious past, the city's political, economic, and cultural importance had declined over the centuries, leaving behind only its classical ruins as a reminder of better times. With the decision to move the national capital from Nafplio to Athens, architects and city planners were hired to build a new city next to the classical ruins, with grand neoclassical homes and public buildings, large city squares, green spaces, and wide avenues. The city regained its importance in Greek civilization, and by 1900 had evolved into a very attractive cosmopolitan city, with abundant neoclassical architecture harking to the nation's past.

The 20th century, however, was not as kind to the city. The city suffered some damage during WWII, and suffered terrible urban planning in the decades that followed, as the nation rapidly industrialized and urbanized. In the 1960s and 1970s, countless 19th century neoclassical buildings were torn down to make way for massive concrete apartment blocks that characterize much of the downtown area until today. The city also expanded outward through rash development, particularly towards the west, as its population grew by absorbing job-seekers from the provinces. With the onset of the automobile, public officials reduced the city's public transportation services without foreseeing the traffic gridlock and smog that would menace the city by the 1980s. Certain areas of the city center, such as Pláka and Thissio districts, retained their charming 19th century architecture but fell into decay, at least to some degree.

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the city's reality led to a rude awakening among local and national officials and -coupled with the country's newfound remarkable prosperity- large scale projects began to slowly regenerate the city and -as much as possible- undo the damages of recent decades. Over the course of the next 15 years, millions of euros poured into new transportation infrastructure projects, the restoration of surviving neoclassical buildings, the gentrification of the city's historical center and the renovation of many former industrial areas and the city's coastline. The restoration of charming neoclassical buildings in the city's historical center has been accompanied by the construction of attractive post-modern buildings in newer districts; both of which have begun to improve the aesthetic essence of the city. Athens today is ever evolving, forging a brand new identity for the 21st century.

Olympic Games
Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympic Games which, to the defiance of critics, were a spectacular success. While most of the sporting venues were located outside...