Athens' lack of greenery goes unnoticed by fans
Excitement over Games outshines city's ugliness
 | Modern Athens is known in many guidebooks as a concrete jungle with little greenery in sight. |
Nick Laham / Getty Images |
ATHENS, Greece - Ancient Greece was best known for its emphasis on beauty. Not so in modern times, particularly in Athens. In tourist books the city is renowned for its cement neighborhoods and lack of greenery. The Olympic organizers’ attempt to hide the city’s flaws for the games is obvious. Fountains line the walkways at the main sports stadium, banners hang from buildings and line city streets, and the metros are so clean the floors seem to gleam.
“It’s much better than I expected,” said Christina Canellopoulou, from Corona, Calif. “Everything in the press was about how it’s not ready, and in the end we see what Greeks are capable of.”
The excitement here is running so high that the crowds don’t even seem to notice the ugliness. Surrounding the stadiums is dust. It gets in your hair and eyes, coats your shoes and can sometimes make breathing a struggle -- and that’s when there’s no wind. Dried leaves fall off the newly planted trees and the evergreens are now ever-browns.
“I was really surprised when I first came in that the paths weren’t paved over,” said Michelle Briggs, here from London to root for the athletes from Sydney, Australia.
Volunteers attempt to avoid spraying passersby with their hoses as they struggle to keep the dirt from forming into clouds, but still, it manages to leave rings on the walls of the sparkling fountains and turn the white tile to brown.
The lack of trees and greenery caught the attention of several environmental agencies and earned the city failing marks in the World Wildlife Fund’s recent assessment of the games.
“Unfortunately, the Athens Olympics will not contribute anything positive to the protection and greening of the few open urban spaces,” the organization said in its report.
The down-to-the-wire preparations resulted in out-of-season planting that “is only meant to temporarily beautify the city.”
At the Helliniko complex, home of five Olympic venues, the stark landscape is almost excusable. A former U.S. air base, the runways double as roads and parking lots, and sprinklers do their best to revive what look like dying saplings. But the view over the blue Mediterranean can’t be beat, and that, coupled with the general success of the games, is what spectators will remember most.
“The dust shows the true Greek climate,” said Laura Canellopoulou, who was born in America and now lives in Athens. “The games are not really about landscaping.”
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