Traveling, as I usually emphasize that is not just about seeing hundreds of sights and taking a lot of pictures, but it is also about meeting another culture and its people.

I was already familiar with Greek hospitality, because I also had an excellent welcome in Thessaloniki, but I could not complain this time either, because I would have never seen a lot of wonders without such a great host I had. 

However, the kindness, attention and awareness of locals were present during my whole stay, and it was not related to whether they knew me or not. For instance, when people saw it in the shop that I had only a few things to buy, they let me go forward and take them over in the queue.

It was similar when people noticed that someone was in a hurry, was a foreigner or somehow more vulnerable than them: they let them go first or helped them without a single question, and this level of overall social solidarity indeed amazed me.

When shopkeepers realized based on our conversation that I was a foreigner, they immediately switched the language to English, but, from the other hand, they could extremely appreciate the few phrases I knew in Greek. It was not so natural for them that a foreigner speaks their language as it is for Spanish natives for example, and although they knew that most probably my knowledge was just about a couple of words, locals really expressed me that I made their day with that.

There was a situation too at the terrace of  a restaurant when two people starting smoking close to my table. I did not like it and I was about to say them something, because they could not see my reactions and my face, but then these people realized that on their own and asked me before I could complain whether they could smoke or not. Since they had this human gesture, I let them to do so even if I did not like it. A little bit of attention really makes a difference!

Greeks, as most foreigners suppose based on popular culture, are indeed very chill. They start work later as elsewhere in Europe and have more freedom, while sometimes they also have a kind of siesta (in Greek: ύπνος – ypnos) due to the hot early afternoons. The fact that the rules are taken looser in Greece means that the traffic is sometimes – just as in Italy or Spain – more chaotic, but it also requires a higher level of mutual trust, which might be connected to the attentiveness of local people.  

Most of the streets in Athens have one direction which makes things easier, and maybe it is annoying for some passengers that the city bus does not stop if no one waves for it, but again: people are forced to be aware in traffic, which is eventually not a bad aspect at all. In the countryside, however, you can see many road signs referring to domestic animals like cows or sheep which might be crossing the road, so for the third time, I can just conclude again that Greek mentality is indeed based on awareness. 

Last thing on traffic: be careful while driving a car in the city, because there are strange random people waiting for you at the traffic lights, and while you cannot move, they are trying to clean your front and back window! Of course, they will ask for money in return, but don’t worry, since you have not asked for the service, you cannot be forced to pay anything: it is just a cheap trick to stimulate people’s conscience and guilt. If you ask me, entertainers like jugglers in Valencia who performed various tricks for car drivers while waiting in the queue was more authentic and honest than this, but actually mostly it is not the Greeks, but the immigrants doing this.

There is something else what makes Greek traffic culture similar to the Italian one. Namely, believe it or not, Athens is as full of scooters as Rome is known for it. I have also got questions about Athens whether it is true that it is dirty and full of garbage. I guess the reason is that the stereotypes on Italian cities are somehow transferred to the Greek ones, and maybe I do not know about the rest of Greece, but the streets of Athens in general are clean and the situation is not worse than in other metropolitan cities. Of course, there are old and abandoned buildings, but come on, where not? Is Budapest different? I don’t think so.