P A R T II I traveled that route many times in the next twenty-five years. Athens, I found, was changing and compared to other European countries which had suffered the same ordeals during World War II, the changes in Athens were overwhelming;
as an ancient city,
Athens had been spared the catastrophic effects from air raids which other capitals suffered. I even thought that the sun had lost some of its old Mediterranean brilliance. The air was dense; the city, once a sparkling metropolis, was gray and overbuilt. Sadly, the rural and mountain were neglected and production suffered; the population were fleeing to other lands and production suffered. Athens was quickly becoming a “modern” European capital; it joined the 20th century! It is my fault, I surmised, because I’ve been away so long I now feel like a foreigner, a stranger to my past. It was only logical that after the disastrous civil war which followed the liberation from Hitler’s hordes, Greece would join the rest of Europe in the post-war development frenzy. Through the years the haze became dense fog; at times it was difficult to breathe. The streets overbuilt were crammed with cars, buses and trucks moving at a snail’s pace, competing with the pedestrians for the few precious feet of cement or even the sidewalks which had virtually become parking lots! In my sadness, reality convinced me that the world couldn’t stop just to satisfy me or tourism. A stranger couldn’t believe or even guess the pre-war poverty, the narrow muddy streets, the small white-washed houses the cottages around Athens with their gardens and back porches; those were now replaced by fancy, modern multi-storied , balconied apartment houses; the green of trees and gardens became scarce. The simplicity and elegance of the ancient and the classical architecture were now replaced by a frenetic rush of over-building.
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