The first Academy

view from the Aeropagus, where ancient aristocrats ruled from and St Paul preached

Athens lives up to expectations, surpasses them elegantly. It is crowded and chaotic on the streets, but still and meditative on Aeropagus next to the Acropolis, or in the National gardens.

It is a city of 4 million, yet when I ask a teenager for directions he walks half a block with me to show me the exact place, just as if it were a village.

Of course the Acropolis, an imposing rock, an island against potential invaders, rises like a fist in the midst of the city and draws all attention to it. Whenever I catch a glimpse of it, it always lifts my spirits... an effect, I learn, that is quite universal.

On or around it, you can see and touch history... the theatre where the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes were performed, the agora where Socrates questioned and Diogenes disgusted the public, the little temple to the god of healing erected when besieged Athens was struck with plague... I could write screeds. Great things happen everywhere, all the time, yet in Athens we have records of them... many records.

Even the underground stations here are museums. Got some free space...? bung up a replica of the Parthenon freize. Better yet, display the ruins we discovered when digging this place out. Sometimes you can't move in Athens for ruins.

I've heard at the Acropolis in September you can't move for tourists - well, just a month later, it is a spacious place except on Sunday (Sundays November-March are free). It's also very warm and comfortable outside, unseasonably so... climate change is definitely noticeable to Greeks. There are down sides to travelling in November though... most sites close their gates by three oclock, meaning I have to plan my days quite carefully in order to see all the old stuff I want to see.

Standing on glass above the ruins that surround the foundations of the new Acropolis museum

No closing hours on the sites of my own personal pilgrimages though: through hints in history books and talking to local shop owners I manage to find the ruins of Plato's Academy, in a park in a district near Larissa train station. Well outside the walls of the ancient city, I rest here for a while, as people walk their dogs and scooters buzz near me. Visiting these old schools is rewarding for me. For the first time I can imagine the students here in three dimensions: some skiving off from a lecture to drink wine, some enthralled, some with a crush on their teacher. Here, the intellectual history of our world is not a sterile thing, it lives and breathes and gets bored and excited just as we do.

Is there a culture en la casa?

I'm not sure if cultures can be mapped on to nation states very accurately at all. There seems to be much more variation within a nation than between nations. Regional differences, subcultures, countercultures, migration, all that stuff. And I was only there for three and a half weeks. But in the interests of er... general interest, permit me to make perhaps three generalisations about the way some of the people behave some of the time in some parts of Spain.

1) There is a definite melting of some of the barriers between strangers. People who had just met me patted me on the shoulder, offered their cheeks to be kissed, (including a burly Andalucian). Everywhere I have travelled I have found strangers to talk to, but it definitely seemed easier, or more relaxed in Spain than in the UK. A Portugese traveller I met in Germany thought this was an Iberian thing "people here (in Germany) want to help you, but they give you space, I like it."

2) People don't speak English, generally. This surprised me. For some reason I had assumed everyone in Europe had roughly the same level of English that one finds in the European travellers to New Zealand. Far from it. As my friend Mete put it "some kids in the Netherlands speak better English than Kiwi kids" while some towns in Spain I doubt I could find a English sentence if I tried.

I remember, in Asturias, I was out in a bar, and a young guy heard me speak a few words of my mother tongue. He bounded over to our table.... "Hello!" he gushed, "I heard you speaking English... I want to practice but I can't... this is f###ing Spain!" Mis amigos did not warm to him, and the conversation did not go much further.

3) Time is different. Nine or ten in the morning is a good time to go to work, and two is a good time to have lunch, maybe sleep a little (not too long or one wakes up groggy) 4 or 5 is a good time to start work and 8 is knock-off time. Dinner can happen between 10 and 12, after which you might go out to a bar, and then do it all again.

I like my seven or so hours sleep, so took advantadge of everything shutting around three and often had a siesta... many don't and just seem to function on less sleep. Maybe that explains the kind of shuffling laziness that seems to pervade Spain. Not that I'm complaining - it does seem to be a nice way to live. Bear in mind, however that I did visit during vacaciones. The Spanish seem to take holidays a little more er... seriously... than we do. Lots of shops, restaurants and other businesses were closed for vacaciones. My favourite 'closed for vacaciones' sign was on what seemed to be the only hotel in Balaguer.

Lived, travelled in Spain? Have a view on 'Spanish culture' Your comments, as always, are very welcome.