Any of us who have traveled to Athens the past few years have seen the drastic changes that have taken place in downtown Athens, transforming many former depleted and neglected areas into trendy, popular and pedestiran friendly neighborhoods.
The current mayor of Athens, Nikitas Kaklamanis, has shown immense interest in bringing back citizens to the area, and helping pedestrianize the streets in the historic centre. (Much like what was done on Ermou Street several years ago - and which we LOVE!)
While plans are currently in the works to close down Athinas street to vehicle traffic, the city is also working with citizens to bring them back to the neighborhood by offering them free parking and tax breaks. (Currently only 50 families live in the historic centre - the city wants to increase that to 500.)
DF: The map above highlights Athinas Street that will soon be transfered to pedestrian traffic (in blue). The yellow line is Ermou street which has also been closed to vehicle traffic. What do you think of the increase of pedestrian zones in downtown Athens?
City of Athens
ASTYNET
posted on Wednesday, August 27
Over 400,000 Greeks have now joined Facebook, a social networking website; which has taken Greece by storm.
The average Greek facebook user spends about 3 to 4 hours a week on the site and most feel that it does not interfere with their work or personal schedule.
Some other fun statistics about the Greek facebook user:
- 55 percent of Facebook’s Greek “friends” are women
- 49 percent are single
- 47 percent are students
- 27 percent have a full time job
- 75 percent have a tertiary degree
- About 50 percent live in Athens or Thessaloniki
- 35.8 percent of the site’s users in Greece are aged 18-24
- The 400,000 Greeks on Facebook represent about 17% of Greece's total online population.
DF: Do you find yourself on Facebook often? Also if you are a member be sure to check out Daily Frappe's application, Meet me in Greece, which in its short life, has attracted nearly 5,000 people from around the world!
Kathimerini
posted on Tuesday, August 26
Environment and Public Works Minister Giorgos Souflias is fighting to limit the construction of new bars and restaurants operating in Athens’s historic Plaka district. Recent protests by residents have brought attention to a proposed change to the current law which only allows establishments to operate on the ground floors of buildings.
DF: Plaka's charm lies not only in it's location and buildings, but it's residents. Smart move.
athens plus (pdf)
posted on Monday, August 25
A Quebec superior court told Theodore Antonopoulos last week that he had to remove the Greek flag painted on his garage door. If you recal, Antonopoulos painted the blue-and-white flag on his garage door in celebration of the 2004 European soccer championships.
DF: Mr. Antonopoulos said he is considering an appeal.
cbc
posted on Monday, August 25
Albania
The ethnic Greek minority political organization, Omonia, has requested the Albanian government make Greek the second official language of the country. (As Albanian is the second language of FYROM.) There are varying reports as to how much the Greek language is spoken daily in Albania.
Georgia
Greece has sent over 100,000 Euros in humanitarian aid to the conflict zone of the Caucasus. In addition, the Greek government will be giving each ethnic Greek in South Ossetia 500 Euros for immediate needs.
Australia and South Africa
The newly formed SAE Youth Network held two meetings; one in Melbourne, and one in Pretoria; as the organization begins to try and bring together the various youth groups from different brotherhoods, associations and sullogi.
posted on Friday, August 22
posted on Friday, August 22
Citizens that have had enough of the illegal parking have found a 'sticky' way to get their message across to drivers.
Through a website called www.streetpanthers.gr,citizens are able to purchase an array of stickers that they can then go place on cars parked in illegal spots in an attempt to 'embarass' them. (And bring attention to the fact that what they are doing is wrong!)
Grigoris Mavrakis who is head of the group, was stated as saying that since 2006 when the site was launched, hundreds of thousands of stickers have been bought.
DF: Interesting way to get the message across.
posted on Friday, August 22
The wait is over for Apple fans in Greece --Vodaphone and Apple have launched the celebrated iphone 3G. However a quick look at the data/voice plans makes the iphone an expensive toy.
From the Vodaphone website, the iPhone 500 super plus package gives users 500 minutes of talk time, 250 SMS messages and 1 GB worth of data consumption for 89,50 €/mo.
DF has had a 3G iphone in hand since it came out last month and is thrilled with the device. Theres a few bugs (OK, a lot of annoying little bugs) but we have faith Apple will figure them out in short order.
DF: A big negative? We won't be able to unlock the phone and use the device with a "Greek" SIM card when we travel to Greece next week. Still, an excellent device. Let us know how the connections are in Greece. We're having some problems in the states with dropped calls on the 3G network.
vodaphone
apple
posted on Friday, August 22
During 2007 there was an overall growth of foreign arrivals in Greece by 8.5% in comparison with the respective data of 2006.
Here's a sampling of the number of visitors broken down by region/country:
EUROPEAN UNION
1. United Kingdom - 2.618.542
2. Germany - 2.264.332
3. Albania - 1.801.814
4. Italy - 1.157.081
5. Bulgaria - 1.099.754 (a whopping 62% increase over 2006!)
6. Netherlands - 828.185
7. France - 756.105
U.S.
380.611
CANADA
113.402
AUSTRALIA
91.311
ASIA
Japan - 57.650
Israel - 112.091
China - 161.858
statistics (pdf)
posted on Thursday, August 21
