Big Dirty Smoke

We drove into the big city for a few days, doctors appointments and such.  I got quite excited.  A huge change from the very quiet island life, a chance to enjoy people watching on another scale.  And I love the night sounds of sirens and traffic, for a few days.

 We booked in at the Savoy Hotel in Piraeus.  Not only is it the only hotel we could find with parking facilities but it is also in our old neighbourhood so we knew the area well.

The Savoy Hotel right smack bang on the end of main street Piraeus, the huge dirty port of Athens

This is how it looked in the 70s when it first opened.  It was a luxury hotel with darkened windows and heavy curtains so you couldn't ogle the guests who, it seemed, were mostly rich Arabs.  Most of the hotel's clients now seem to be school groups of american teenagers  touring  Greece.  All they need is somewhere to plonk their packs and gather for the morning bus trip.

I didn't bother taking a photo this time.  It is a slightly downrun 3* star hotel on a noisy main road, surrounded by grimy pavements, empty shops, small coffee bars and the constant flow of city people on their way to and from somewhere to someplace.  

The parking is chained off and I had to run around to the front desk to get the key to the padlock while K tried to scrunch into the edge of a narrow street with an unbelievably narrow strip of roadway in the middle, cars parked on either side leaving just enough space for our car to pass through with side mirrors pushed in.  Heaven knows where we would have parked otherwise.  Every tiny space had a car in it, inches away from those before and behind.

Key obtained we manoeuvred gingerly from the edge of the road into the parking area which at least had plenty of free spaces.  

30 years ago we lived in a top floor apartment right behind the hotel.  It was built by a ship owner whose family lived on the two first floors.  In its day it was the latest in construction, anti-seismic we were told after surviving the 6.6 richter earthquake in 1981.  We lived on the top floor and the building swayed backwards and forwards.  Tins fell out of cupboards and our 6 month old baby girl was not hurt thank goodness by books which fell from a shelf above into her cot but not on top of her.

Now the building is desicrated with graffiti and trash blowing round the stoop .  The street is shaded by trees which have been planted on the footpath.  It is green and leafy with shade from the sun but still not a place you want to linger.

On the main road above the same unkempt elderly woman, it seems to me, sits on a step and feeds the pigeons, surrounded by bowls of food and water for the street dogs and cats. 

Gone are the drycleaners, the little grocery store, the toy shop and even the police station has moved elsewhere.

There is a national hospital at the end of the next road down, so plenty of chemist shops, quick coffee shops and buses which will take you wherever you need to go.