Travelogue : Athens - Arrival

Whenever I enter a new city, I tend to grasp the vibes of the city in the initial experiences I face. When I landed at Athens, I noticed a feeling of warmth and homeliness. Maybeit was due to the Greeks who are very similar in their social manners to the Indians or maybe its the hot Greek weather which reminded me of the hot Indian summers. The other thing I notice while travelling to places is the distinctive color thats reflected from the public places. For instance, when I was in Dublin, one could sense the ominous green color (the Irish have a shade of green, in all their national icons) present everywhere. Similarly, within a few minutes at Athens and I could sense the ominous Navy Blue Greek color in almost everything - from Train stations to notice boards, to Airport Sign Boards etc. Well, the other major concern I had while coming to Athens was the directions to my hotel, where I had booked my accomodation. In normal circumstances, one would check out the Google Maps for the city map of Athens, search out the street and mark out the directions from the airport or the city center. But in this case, if you check out the Google Maps for Athens, you will be surprised to see everything in Greek! Agreed localisation of your product means to present the maps of Greece in Greek - I am sure the Greeks love to see that. But what about those tourists, who are visiting Athens and are in need of a map for directions, you cant expect them to read and understand Greek! A small option of viewing the Greece Map in English would make matters simple for the numerous tourists who could use the Google Maps for finding their way on the streets of Greek cities. Well the engineers in Google must have a reason for keeping it that way, but imagine if I plan to visit Beijing, then I would have to learn Chinese first in order to use the Maps from Google!

The Airport is situated on the outskirts of the Athens City and is well connected through Bus Service, Sub-urban Trains, Metro and taxis. A ticket on the Metro costs about 6 euro something to travel to downtown, while the taxis take about 20-25 euros. Through the Metro it takes about an hour to reach the central stops. The Athens Metro is well maintained and the stations are all beautifully constructed with a great sense of aesthetics. It was around 3 years ago that the Olympics were held here and looks like all the investment the city had put in its infrastructure, is well maintained. My hotel was somewhere close to the Syntagma Square. On reaching that square the first thing I did was to buy a street map with English transliteration of the street names. To able to understand Greek is a great thing for a foreig tourist, but to be able to read is an important thing. After getting my map, it did not take me much time to figure out my way and reached the hotel easily. Since I was too tired from the trevours of the day in Corfu, I could hardly muster the strength to go out for a dinner. I dropped to sleep like a log, hoping to revitilise myself for the next day.