The cicadas are already in full swing by the time I step out of the flat in Koukaki, and the air has that thick, honey-coloured quality it gets in early August, when the city feels like it's holding its breath. Today is the last full day in Athens before I head north, and I've got a list of things to tie up. First on the list, a proper breakfast at a place I've been meaning to try, Little Tree Books and Coffee over near the Benaki Museum, because I keep walking past it and the idea of coffee and a bookshop in one is exactly the kind of slow morning I need before the chaos of packing.
I order a freddo espresso and sit by the window. The coffee is around three and a half euros, which is about what you'll pay anywhere in this city for a proper one. I watch the street outside, the way the light falls across the pavement, the old man at the corner kiosk rearranging his newspapers. There's a rhythm to this neighbourhood in the morning, a kind of gentleness that the heat forces on you. I think about the fact that in two days I'll be in Metsovo, in the mountains, where the air is thin and cool, and I feel a little pang of something that might be guilt for leaving Athens when it's at its most alive.
After breakfast, I head over to the Varvakios Central Market one more time. It's a place that pulls you in even when you don't need anything. The butchers are shouting their prices, the fish glisten on their beds of crushed ice, and the smell of oregano and offal and lemon hangs in the air. I wander through, just taking it in. I grab a quick souvlaki from one of the stands near the entrance, a pork wrap that costs around three and a half euros, and it's the perfect thing to eat while you're leaning against a wall, watching the chaos of a market that hasn't changed its character in a hundred years. I'm told the market has been here since the nineteenth century, and it feels it, in the best way.
There's a serious matter to attend to, though. I need to find a flat for September. The place in Koukaki is only for the first month, and I want to secure a permanent base before I leave, or at least have a shortlist. I've been keen on Pangrati. It's got a good feel, a bit more local, with Plateia Varnava at its heart and a wine-bar scene that's apparently become quite the thing. I've arranged to see a one-bedroom flat near Proskopon Square. The rent is about seven hundred and fifty euros a month, and I've been told that's on the lower end for the area. I still can't quite get over how the rents have climbed. They say they went up around ten per cent in 2025, and one bedroom now eats a huge chunk of an average salary.
The flat itself is on the third floor of a building from the 1970s, with a tiny balcony that looks out over a courtyard. It's got the classic Greek layout, a small entryway, a living room with a sofa bed, a kitchen that's basically a corridor. The landlord is a woman named Eleni who tells me about the neighbourhood, how it used to be full of retired professors and now it's all young people who work in tech. She asks me what I do, and it still feels strange to say 'podcaster'. I tell her I'm writing about Greece, looking for a base for the autumn. She seems pleased. 'Filoxenia', she says, hospitality. It's a good sign. I take her number, and I tell her I'll be in touch from the mountains.
I walk around Pangrati a bit more after the viewing. I stop at a kafeneio on Plateia Varnava for a cold glass of water and a coffee, just to absorb the atmosphere. There's a group of men playing tavli at the table next to me, the dice rattling against the wooden board. A woman with a shopping trolley argues with a fruit seller about the price of peaches. The peaches, by the way, are extraordinary. It's peak stone-fruit season, and you can get beautiful ones for a couple of euros a kilo. I buy a few and eat them standing up, letting the juice run down my chin. This is the Athens I wanted to find, the one that isn't a monument but a place where people actually live.
I take the metro from Evangelismos back towards the centre. A single ticket costs one euro twenty, and the daily cap is four euros ten, which is still remarkable value for a city this size. The metro is quiet for August, which is to say it's full of tourists but not so many commuters. The line runs under the city, and for a moment I think about the news story I'd read about Line 4 and the cracks in buildings over in Kypseli. Apparently there's been a bit of a saga, with the tunnelling suspended after residents reported subsidence in around two hundred apartments. It's been dominating the local news and City Council meetings for weeks. It just makes you realise that this city, for all its ancient stones, is a living organism with all the attendant plumbing problems.
I get off at Thissio and walk up towards the Acropolis for one last look. The path up Dionysiou Areopagitou is a river of people, and the heat radiates off the marble. I've been told the Acropolis admission is thirty euros in the summer, and I've already been up twice. Today, I just want to stand at the base and look up. There's a bench under a pine tree, and I sit there for a while, watching the tourists take their mandatory photos. A group of schoolchildren in matching t-shirts is being corralled by a teacher who looks exhausted. A young couple is trying to get a selfie with the Parthenon, and their arms aren't long enough. I offer to take the photo for them.
As I'm sitting there, I check my phone for messages. There's one from a friend I made at the Herodeion the other night, asking if I want to go to Cine Thisio tonight. It's an open-air cinema right there in the shadow of the Acropolis, and they've been showing classic Greek films all summer as part of the Athens Open Air Film Festival. Apparently, the festival runs until the twenty-sixth of August, with screenings almost every night in different parks around the city, at Aigli Zappeiou, Kotzia Square, Eleftherias Park. It feels like the perfect way to spend a last evening. I say yes without hesitation. The tickets are around eight euros, which is a bargain for a night under the stars with the Acropolis lit up above you.
I walk back towards Koukaki as the afternoon begins to soften. The light turns that particular shade of gold that bathes everything in a kind of cinematic glow. I stop at Taf Coffee for one more freddo, because I know that mountain coffee is a different beast altogether. I sit on the terrace and make a few notes in my phone. The cost of living here, the fact that daily life is still remarkably affordable if you're not paying Athens rent. The gyros for three euros, the coffee for four, the metro for a euro twenty. The rent is the outlier. That's what I keep coming back to. Everything else, a traveller can do a day here for less than fifty euros, easily. A hostel bed, a couple of meals, a museum ticket, and you haven't broken the bank.
In the evening, I meet my friend at Cine Thisio. The first stars are appearing, and the sky above the Acropolis is a deep violet. We find our seats and I order a beer. The film is an old black-and-white one, the kind of tragedy where everyone has very strong opinions and very thick eyebrows. The audience is a mix of Athenians and tourists, and the murmur of voices before the film starts is a pleasant hum. There's a moment, just as the lights go down, when I look up at the ancient stones above me and a bat flits across the screen. I laugh to myself. Only in Athens. The film is wonderful, a slow-burn drama about family honour, and the cicadas provide a soundtrack that the director never could have imagined.
After the film, we walk through the quiet streets of Thissio and back towards Monastiraki. The city is alive at night in a way it isn't during the day. The tavernas are full, and the sound of plates and laughter spills out into the streets. We pass a place in Psyrri where someone is playing a bouzouki, and the sad, sweet notes of a rebetiko song follow us down the block. I think about how this is the deep summer lull, when the city empties out, but the people who stay, they live for these nights. We stop at a taverna, not a famous one, just a place with plastic chairs and paper tablecloths, and we split a plate of grilled octopus and a horiatiki salad. The bill for both of us is around twenty-five euros. We finish with an ouzo each, the aniseed taste sharp against the cooling air.
I walk back to my flat in Koukaki, the streets quieter now. I pass the Acropolis Museum, its glass façade glowing softly. In the morning, I'll pack my bag, take the metro to the bus station, and head north to the mountains. I'll leave this city feeling like I've barely scratched the surface, but that's okay. The plan is to come back in September, with a new flat and a new perspective. For now, I just want to capture this feeling, the one you get when you're leaving a place you're just beginning to love. The air is still warm, and the cicadas have finally fallen silent. I hear my key turn in the lock, and the flat is quiet. I sleep with the window open, listening to the soft hum of the city below.
The alarm goes off at six thirty, and I'm out of the flat by seven. The city is already shimmering with heat. I take one last look at the street, at the bougainvillea spilling over the walls, at the old woman watering her plants from a balcony. I make my way to the metro, the same line that brought me here a week ago. The train pulls out of Koukaki station, and I watch the city scroll by. I'm headed for the bus station at Kifissos, and from there, a bus into the mountains. Metsovo is waiting. But Athens, I'll be back for you in September. I feel a quiet certainty about that, and it's a good feeling to carry with me. The city has left a mark, and I know I'm not done with it yet.
The bus pulls out of Athens, and the urban sprawl gradually gives way to olive groves and pine-covered hills. The air in the mountains is supposed to be thirty degrees cooler, and I can't wait. But I find myself thinking about the words of a Greek friend, who told me that you never really leave Athens. It stays with you, like the taste of an ouzo on your tongue, the sound of a bouzouki fading down a street. I think about the filoxenia I've been shown, the kindness of strangers, the hospitality that is so much more than a word. As the city's skyline disappears behind the hills, I'm ready for the next chapter. But I know, with absolute certainty, that I'll be back. Yassou, Athens. I'll see you soon.