Athens Is Not The New Berlin

“Is Athens the New Berlin? No, it is Athens. But, something is happening.” As Athens continues on a creative regeneration, the city has been compared and called the “New Berlin,” but some disagree on the city’s new label. As Neos Kosmos reports, “Artists, collectives, new bars, farm-to-table restaurants, startups, and alternative music venues are amassing in Athens. Abandoned buildings, the scars from what Greeks simply call ‘the Crisis’ are turning to cultural spaces and startups. Political statements are now blazoning street art. Artists from Mexico, Bali, New York and Western Europe are making Athens a new base.”

Athens starts at 9am and ends at 4am. The city has its own distorted symphony made of diverse music from limitless bars and cafes, car horns, vendors’ shouts, people talking, dogs barking, scouters and motorbikes.

Psyri, previously a poor inner city neighborhood is now a hipster hub. The hole-in-the-wall bar, Cantina Social, renowned for alternative music and heaving late night parties is burrowed in a secret courtyard. Embros an abandoned warehouse is a performance space run by a collective presenting theatre, performance, dance and alternative music.

To read this article in full, please visit: Neos Kosmos