Rick Steves' Greece: Athens & the Peloponnese amazon.com
Bust: Greece, the Euro and the Sovereign Debt Crisis - By Matthew Lynn amazon.com
Greece's 'Odious' Debt: The Looting of the Hellenic Republic by the Euro, the Political Elite and the Investment Community - By Jason Manolopoulos amazon.com
Understanding the Crisis in Greece: From Boom to Bust - By Theodore Pelagidis amazon.com
The Imminent Crisis: Greek Debt and the Collapse of the European Monetary Union amazon.com
Eyewitness Greece - Athens and the Mainland - 352 Pages
Financial markets and economic growth in Greece, 1986-1999 [An article from: Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money]
Athens Demographics:
The population count for Athens was 10,964,020 in 2001. According to eurostat, in 2008 Greece had a total estimated population of 11,262,000. Of this, some 695,979 are estimated to be non-Greek.
July 2, 2010
"Protect tourism"
A general protest from Kathimerini:
"Tourism must be protected...
Athens and a number of other linked destinations are already beginning to feel the brunt of the port closures, as thousands of tourists have canceled their cruise reservations in fear of these actions and the disruptions they can cause to their travel plans.
The impact on tourism, Greece’s biggest industry, should be taken seriously into account by the government the next time it sees a group breaking the law, because the country’s economy simply cannot bear anymore blows.
Kathimerini is very good at stating the obvious. To back up their protest is the letters page at Kathimeri, which includes the kind of letters you would expect to see:
[From a visitor from Florida, USA, After protesting strikes that stopped travel to the islands and the Acropolis] ...Apart from that, the city itself is unwelcoming and hostile to pedestrians. The sidewalks are traveled by mopeds and motorcycles and, if they are not, they are covered by street vendors of all sorts. The Omonia Square area ought to be off-limits to visitors. Filth is everywhere and no wall has been spared of unsightly graffiti or advertising posters. Is this what you inherited from Pheidias, Iktinos and Callicrates? A veritable ghetto. A shame and pity. A gorgeous country inhabited by unpatriotic vandals, assorted barbarians and uncivilized mobs. This is nowhere we wish to spend an extended visit."
I've read letters like that for decades, either at the AthensNews or elsewhere: its a generic complaint, in a way, that Greeks aren't like Americans (or British, or French, or whatever...) and obviously a lot of this is simply the perspective of a visitor to an unfamiliar place. But it certainly isn't the kind of publicity Greek tourism needs.
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