A nice area

Me: We’ve just got a morning left in Athens and were thinking of going to Exarchia. Does that make sense?
Friendly hotel man: Oh no, don’t go there. It’s a bad place.
Me: Bad? How?
FHM: It is very… how do you say… mixed.
Me: Do you mean mixed nationalities?
FHM: Yes, and… You should go to Kolonaki. It’s a nice area, good shops.
Me: Ah… Well, I see you do a 5% discount for teachers. We’ll have to remember that when we come back.
FHM: You are a teacher? Do you teach in a school?
Me: No, I help people who have been unemployed for a very long time to find work. Ex-criminals, people who were drug addicts. People with mental health problems.
FHM: That is very good, very good work.
Me: So am I allowed to go to Exarchia now?
FHM: Oh yes! Go, go! It is a very interesting place. You must go.

And we did. Predictably there was a greater density of urban art there, on walls and on skin, and we saw a melted red and black flag limply flapping above this burnt out building but Exarchia was completely unthreatening and we walked out the other side unscathed to Strefi Hill.

As we climbed to the sound of crickets among the cypress, the olive trees and the aromatic pines, the aloe vera and the prickly pears, we almost, but not quite, saw Socrates and Plato in heated argument. But we definitely saw Athens in white from above.