We keep one apartment in Athens, on a roof in Psyri with the Acropolis in front of it. We are looking, slowly, for a second.
Athens is not a pretty city, and that is the point. It is a working capital of concrete and marble, stairwells and balconies, where the ancient sits in the middle of the everyday and nobody makes a fuss. The light does the rest: it is direct, white, and generous until late.
The person who holds the keys has welcomed guests here for more than a decade, and knows which taverna will still feed you at midnight and which museum is empty on a Tuesday.
Lepeniotou
A small room and a large garden in the sky, six floors above Psyri.
Twenty-five square metres inside, sixty outside, six floors up in the old artisans' quarter. A queen bed, a glass-roofed shower, underfloor heating, and the sacred rock on the horizon from your breakfast table.
We are looking in Koukaki and Pangrati for something with marble stairs and a balcony that faces west. When we find it, the letter will say so first.
Athens, our way
A guide to the city, written by the person who holds the keys.
The rock at eight, the museum at ten
Be at the Acropolis gate when it opens and walk down the south slope afterwards. The Acropolis Museum is best before the coaches arrive and the marble floors are still cool.
Shade, and the neighbourhoods
Anafiotika's whitewashed lanes after four, when the groups have gone. Then Koukaki or Pangrati for a coffee under a plane tree, where the city lives rather than performs.
Tables without menus in English
Ask us. We keep a list of tavernas where the food arrives before you ask, and where the bill is a fraction of what you feared.
