High Life | 9 August 2008

On board S/Y Bushido

Sailing into Athens, renamed ‘cemento-polis’ by green-loving Athenians, can be a traumatic experience, for one’s crew, that is. Coming in from the west, crossing Pireaus, my German cook Daniel could not believe his eyes. ‘Was ist das? Das ist furchtbar, abscheulich!’ Daniel is young, a very good cook and as good a pick-up artist as I have come across in my travels. His specialities are English and Dutch girls. ‘I know you will not like me because I’m German but you will come on board for a drink…ja?’ Piraeus now looks like the Albanian coast, without a single tree or bush to relieve the eye from the utter ugliness of a city built by the short-sighted for short-term profit. I was actually embarrassed in front of my crew — New Zealanders and Australians who have travelled the globe and know ugly when they see it. We dropped anchor, the mother of my children flew off to Switzerland and I headed for Athens, a city always present in the heart and mind of anyone who has ever aspired to greatness.

Mind you, the Athens I knew as a child can no longer be glimpsed. A few smells, the narrow streets of Plaka at dawn, the tightly closed shutters of a Kolonaki apartment building are reminders of the once most romantic small capital of Europe. The men who used to sit around the Kolonaki square sipping endless cups of coffee and eyeing the women, dandies, flâneurs, Lotharios are mostly gone, replaced by entrepreneurs talking shop. The old bunch cultivated a certain melancholy, self-pity of sorts, sentimental and nostalgic. They dressed impeccably, and those who couldn’t afford it nevertheless wrapped a silk handkerchief around their necks and played it like Bohemians.