When at uvinersity, we used to meet on Saturday mornings and go for coffee with friends in the area below the Acropolis (Plaka).
Not sure when this was taken, judging by the good exposure i would say it is taken with the EOS-5, so late 90's.
Kodak Ektachrome Elite 200
View attachment 4833068
Ah, the Plaka. In 1971 (53 years ago in May!) I had a week to kill in Athens while my airline fixed up and rebooked my ticket from Athens to Canada after my (previously alluded to) stint in the prison in Kos. I had ample time to kill and not much money, and back then the Place was a place for locals to be seen at night, loitering at tables with friends, enjoying the cool and chatting about the day's events.
The Athenians were a kind lot (I would think they still are, if rather more allergic to foreign tourists now than they were back then) and I made many new friends. Various drinks were presented to my table for my tasting - a lot of Metaxa brandy and other interesting liqueurs made in the islands was consumed and I have recollections of stumbling back to my budget hotel, usually assisted by one or two kind locals, embracing and declaring my undying affection for few lampposts on the way. One time I was there at lunch time (obviously good habits die hard) and I made the friendly acquaintance of two German ladies "of a certain age" who were sitting at the table next to mine - in my more experienced old age I would assess them as a couple, very worldly, extremely kind to a young traveller obviously somewhat down on his luck - who invited me to share their lunch of a large Greek salad and platters of small delicacies (I recall fried tiny fish which we ate heads, tails, bones and all) and two wonderful Greek wines, Chevalier de Rhodes and Lindos dry white. I remember those vinos to this day, so good they were.
In such enjoyable company both Greek and German my six days in Athens passed quickly, and when my rebooked air ticket and long-awaited money from my bank eventually arrived for me at American Express, I went to the Plaka for one last time, in fact two times, atlunch and in the evening, to "shout" my friends to food and drink from me. Nothing was expensive in Greece then as I remember. Today the cost of a day's reasonable eating in Athens even without getting stuck into the alcohols, would have kept me well fed and watered for a week back then.
With all that sociability and those good times, would you believe it, I never made it to the Akropolis? It shames me greatly to write this. If ever I needed only one reason to return to Athens, surely this would have to be it.
I miss those times, but even now in my old age there are still consolations when I travel, now mostly to Asia where a cool Bintang, Anchor or Tiger beer with cracked ice and a slice of lime, soaked up slowly in the shade at a stall while watching the street life around me, suffices.
I am now too old to try to relive the hurdy-gurdy travels of my twenties, so trekking about the Greek Islands with a backpack of Nikon digital gear would be too much for me. One camera, at most one or two lenses, maybe. A last visit to the wonderful Plaka of Athens would be a delight, altho' I no longer hold to the illusion that is is now what it was then. Que sera sera...