 |
| From a room in Athens, Hotel Cecil |
The reason I have so few photos to go with this one is that I didn't have the sense to take it for its own sake. It owes every virtue that it may have to French post-impressionist paintings, mostly those of Matisse, my favorite, done on the Côte d'Azur. It was taken in black and white because that was the film in my camera at the time. I have other pictures of Athena Street, which I should gather into an album. The Central Market is there and (at least until a decade ago) dozens of small shops of every imaginable kind. I was looking for my picture of the fishmonger's humor in wrapping two arms of a big octopus around an ouzo bottle. I'll post that and some others in a separate post.
This photo would have looked even more French in color, with the shutters being green, the tiles dull red, the stucco buff tan, the plant light yellow green, the metal of course black to prevent rust. But I like it as it is.
Modern Sparta, at least early modern Sparta, also has lots of French influence, but I think the Hotel Cecil simply has Mediterranean tall windows with shallow balconies and shutters.
I do miss going to Athens almost every year. It is the only place I love more than California.
Yes it's a nicely composed photo teegee, but how do you remember its colours so vividly ? !
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing the octopus and ouzo bottle photo.
I must confess that the one time I visited Athens it was a very smog-congested City, but essential to visit of course for the classically-inclined scholar.
I've just fixed up the album for the Athena Street blog posting. By 2000
ReplyDeleteAthens wasn't nearly so smoggy (the Metro carrying a million and a half passengers per day helped a lot, as well as strict rules like California's for cars, plus strict enforcement for fuel in buses and trucks (Euroland standards, expensive, probably more expensive than Greece could afford, but, like the Metro, worth every cent of it. Greece has been poor before, but I promise she won't go back to the helplessness of the 1950s. She is too proud for that. It isn't only classical inclination that makes one love Athens.
I remember color very accurately; I just do.