SWELTERING BENEATH THE Acropolis in an olive-green t-shirt, Kerry GAA shorts and flip-flops that are having a row with your correspondent’s toes, this soaring sun still makes me feel overdressed.
To compound matters, stinging sweat is flowing into the wounds opening on the upper parts of my toes. There is only one winner in this footwear battle.
It’s going to be a long day, and kick-off for the Republic of Ireland’s game with Greece is not for another eight hours. So, plenty of time to soak in the history while soaking in my own, unrelenting sweat.
And of course, the sun cream is melting into my eyes too.
The first 50 hours of this Nations League away double header were spent in Finland last Wednesday and Thursday, before a flight via Berlin landed in Athens at 4pm local time on Friday – roughly 12 hours after waking in Helsinki.
Time has become a construct centred around when Ireland play, or by going off the last time you spoke to manager Heimir Hallgrímsson and the next time you will speak to him.
This trip has been a good one so far, both in terms of the win in Helsinki before arriving here and also our interactions with the new manager who has been happy to chat at his formal press conference duties but also more casually afterwards.
Confidence is high, perhaps too high in your correspondent’s case, and a question delivered to Hallgrímsson the day before the Greece game is delivered without the required level of dilution – both in tone and speed – to my Dublin accent.
“Too Irish for me. Can you give it to me again?” Hallgrímsson replied.
Laughter from my colleagues fills the press room, who have already forgotten that I transcribed six minutes and 52 seconds of the Icelander’s quotes for them only a day earlier.
“Talk to me like I’m a five-year-old,” he adds.
At least now, here on Areopagus Hill, your correspondent doesn’t have to speak and can just be alone in thought – and sweat.
This was the site of the Athenian judicial council, and my conviction would probably be based on perspiration levels alone.
Tourists graze the rocks looking for the ideal selfie spot. On one side, towering above all else, is the Acropolis, while you can peer over much of the city too.
One lady slips and falls but makes sure to cling on to her phone. She is fine, thankfully, other than a few scratches.
An American tour group with blue lanyards around their necks are led by a man in his 60s wearing a green Masters golf t-shirt. With a collar, of course.
Augusta, by all accounts, considers itself equally significant historically. And probably more spiritual.
As he leads the group of mostly retired pensioners to a spot where they can all form a circle around him, he turns from promoter to preacher.
“We are no longer just tourists now, let us welcome God,” he says, a microphone attached to the side of his cheek.
“Lord, come to us.”
They raise their hands in unison, a moment of genuine warmth among believers. “This is the birthplace of intellectualism in the world,” the Augusta Preacher says.
It is at this point three Ireland fans in matching lime green polyester shamrock suits shuffle into view.
A mother roars at her eight year-old son to stop advancing on the slopes. If she was Irish she would be calling out for Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Peering out to the city, the views are majestic and the weight of history almost comforting.
But when you are down among the streets things can feel differently – just like almost every other major city.
There is still beauty around corner but poverty and suffering too.
A particular block of the city is a brutal, extreme distillation. About 10 minutes from Omonia Square, people battling heroin addiction get their fix in the open – the wreckage of which is visible and easily imagined.
In August 2023, a report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) cited how “Athens is one of many cities around the world that is working to fight the opioid crisis” by expanding access to “medication that can reverse opioid overdose within seconds by prioritising policies that allow the use of naloxone”.
The report details “64 facilities with opioid substitution therapy treatment centres, 75 prevention centres and a drug consumption room”.
It adds that naloxone is administered by health professionals and “131 overdose cases have been successfully reversed . . . to save lives.”
Because it is not simply the poor or those on the fringes that are suffering. “Gone are the days when each of us did our own thing, guided by our own good intentions. We must unite our voice with every agency, scientist, and family in order to change the legislative framework,” Mayor Bakoyannis added in that WHO report.
Part of the coalition combating the problem is the Hellenic Liver Patient Association-Prometheus, and president George Kalamitsis said: “There is no true stereotype for people living with opioid addiction, such as the impoverished users often represented in the media. In truth, the victims are our family members, our spouses, our fellow students, and colleagues.”
Decency and compassion and understanding in this regard are as impressive as any ancient monument.
As kick off nears and the sun begins to set, more and more green jerseys are visible heading towards the metro at the bustling Monastiraki area. Or Monasterevin as it has been dubbed by some.
Two of those Ireland fans are wearing jerseys from the mid 1990s and mid 2000s. The number 17 is on the former and four on the latter.
Turns out they are match-worn Under-21 shirts belonging to Wes Hoolahan and Thomas Morgan, respectively, and one of their aunties will be among the 900 aways fans to watch Ireland lose 2-0 to Greece.
They will be staying on longer and others will continue their holiday in places like Corfu, but for your correspondent it’s a little after 1.15am leaving the stadium for Athens airport to catch a 3.40am flight to Barcelona.
It is still dark by the time of departure there, just after 7am, and by the time we come in to land in Dublin the sun is beaming over a bitingly cold morning.
It’s a different kind of view to the one from The Acropolis about 18 hours previously, but it’s good to be home.
