The trouble with taking on a whole new town, especially if it’s just for a mini-break, is where do you start? How do you get from the airport? Do you bother with the classic tourist sites? How do you choose where to book your hotel? It’s so much easier to, you know, not go.
Luckily for you, when it comes to Athens, you have help. Firstly, you can get a Metro from the airport but it costs nine Euros, which seems a bit steep and it’s a bit of a hack so, know what, treat yourself to a very reasonable Uber. Secondly, are you kidding? The Acropolis (which is the hill) and the Parthenon (which is the temple on it) are fantastic! Yeah, it’s 20 Euros but you’re here, aren’t you? And you get great views of the whole city thrown in for free and you get to wander through some of the cutest neighbourhoods – with some of the cutest and most raggedy cats – on your way.
And finally, you don’t want to be right slap bang in the tourist centre, do you? That’s Plaka and it’s lovely. But you want to be able to get there, maybe in fifteen minutes, maybe in a three-Euro Uber. And you want to feel like you’re really in Athens, in a proper neighbourhood. So you choose The Modernist, a slick and surprisingly bargainous new hotel in the Kolonaki area, which is just across from the National Gallery and less than twenty minutes from Athens’ main gay bar, Rooster Athens (where you’ll find out all about clubs like Soldad2, which is really much better than you would think).
The Modernist is a cool little easy-to-use hotel, where you can get a smallish room for just over £100 and where you can order up a healthy salmon or falafel bowl on room service for ten Euros. We like that. Painted black in the middle of a street of white buildings, you go up some stairs to a funky little reception and boutique, where they sell little Modernist T-shirts and notebooks that people actually do buy, and you’re home.
Across the way from the reception is the modest breakfast room (buffet and hot stuff) that morphs into modest lunch room with those healthy room service bowls at the heart of things. It’s a sophisticated little room in black – there’s a lot of black – opening onto the street, stacked with magazines and art books and designer lighting and help-yourself-to-water pumps.
Up in the tiny lift – makes you realise how boutique this place is – you’ll get to a room that is simple but beautifully designed. Black ceilings, some black panelling, white walls, a black-and-brass unit screwed to the wall with some little shelves and your TV and a couple of Danish design ornaments and pictures (the whole design of the place is very Danish, very chic, very now). Your bathroom is a little retro in feel, again in black and white while your view, if you’re at the front, is over some treetops towards downtown and the Acropolis. Go for a bigger room and you’ll get a terrace and maybe even a hot tub on that terrace.
Back up in the lift to the roof terrace – surprisingly under-used considering what a lovely little spot it is – and you get your view across town to the Acropolis. Take the sun, phone down for a drink, have your lunch, watch the sun set over the town.
And congratulate yourself on being so clever as to book yourself into the most perfect spot. Right where you want it to be, handy for everything but with nothing touristy about it at all. And when you’re settled in, take a wander down, past the British Embassy, past all the Gucci and Chanel boutiques, past people eating out in the street, down through the high-street shops like H&M to the area around Athinaikos, maybe have a bite to eat in Louis Bistro, which is so picturesque it seems like something from a film, then round the corner you go to Rooster, where you can sit out on the terrace and they’ll bring your drinks to you, and your big gay weekend begins.
Now, come on, how easy was that?
