[August 2023] The city of Athens, Greece, seen from Lycabettus Hill, was extremely chaotic.
I love towns like Modica in Italy, where old houses are built one on top of the other, but this one has gone too far.
I was also overwhelmed by the scale of the city.
There must be a huge number of people living there (I looked it up and it seems like it’s around 650,000 people, which isn’t that many, is it).
To get to Lycabettus Hill, we walked from Evangelimos Station, which is one stop from Syntagma Station, to the cable car platform.
The path to the cable car station was longer than expected, and we had to climb stairs and hills, which was difficult in the heat.
When we finally arrived at the platform, there was air conditioning, so I was able to take a breather.
When I rode this cable car (€10 round trip per person), I was surprised to find that it was completely inside a tunnel.
In other words, you can’t see anything.
I have never ridden a cable car like this before.
Lycabettus Hill is the highest point in Athens.
You could also see the Acropolis in the distance from here.
I think this way of building a city is probably due to the sense of distance between people in Athens.
They may feel uneasy if they don’t literally live shoulder to shoulder.
It’s not exactly a beautiful town, but it was a very interesting experience to see it from above.
Having written this far, I remembered the view of Tokyo we saw from the Sky Tree several years ago.
Tokyo is much more chaotic.
The number of humans is also incomparably greater.
On top of Lycabettus Hill there is a Greek church called Basilica of Georgios.
Unfortunately, photos were not allowed inside.
I saw some icons wrapped in silver, and I thought they must be historical treasures, but I could not find out what they were called or meanings of them.
There was also a stylish cafe, but it had a reputation for being expensive, so we decided not to stop by.
