The classics never go out of style, but Athens also embraces unapologetically modern art, architecture and design. I checked out the new Athenian scene for How to Spend It magazine.
Athenians are not bons viveurs in the stuffy, snobbish French sense. They have their own word for it – kaloperasakides – which loosely translates as ‘good timers’. Dilys Powell put her finger on it in her mid-century memoir, An Affair of the Heart:
‘I still thought of Athens as a place of sun, friendly, elegant, cosmopolitan; a place of chattering cafés, smart parties, and sophisticated argument; a place to sit on a summer evening amidst the murmur of crowds and the glimmer of bright dresses…’