Exarchia

The Polytechnic, November 1973

The student occupation of the Athens Polytechnic against the military junta ended when a tank was driven through the gate on 17 November 1973. Forty civilians died in the streets around the building, and the junta itself fell the following year. The aftermath produced the academic asylum law, which still shields university grounds from police entry.

The date is commemorated every year by a march that starts in Exarchia and ends in the centre, and the gate of the Polytechnic is preserved as the focus of it. If you are in Athens on the anniversary, expect the whole district to close to traffic from the afternoon. The square fills with banners, stalls and crowds in the tens of thousands, which is worth seeing once, provided you are happy to walk rather than drive anywhere near it.

Since then

Exarchia has been the geographical centre of the Greek left and anarchist politics ever since, with squats, self-organised spaces and a long record of confrontation with the police. The district takes its name from a 19th-century shopkeeper called Exarchos, which predates the politics by a century. The identity now rests on the murals, the posters and the periodic tear gas, alongside bookshops, record shops and radical publishing houses that keep working between the confrontations.

For over a decade there has also been redevelopment pressure, most visibly a metro station built under the square against sustained local opposition. That fight framed the neighbourhood as a symbol far beyond Athens, and a good deal of what is written about it treats it as an idea rather than a place. It is both, and the two coexist awkwardly.

What that means for a visitor

Very little, most days. You will see political posters and graffiti you cannot read, a police presence at the edges, and a neighbourhood going about its business. Cafes and bars are full of students and long-term residents rather than tourists, which is exactly why many people come.

On demonstration days, which are announced in advance and cluster around fixed dates, the streets around the Polytechnic are best avoided in the evening. Metro access is also limited by that same redevelopment history, since the line under the square was contested and you should check connections before relying on it. Otherwise come at lunchtime, sit on a terrace, and read the walls.

The murals change constantly, and the best of them are genuine large-scale work rather than tags, which surprises visitors expecting nothing but mess.

Student prices

The neighbourhood's economy is set by students and by people who have lived here for decades, so a plate costs what a plate costs and nobody marks prices up for visitors. This is the best quality-per-euro in the centre of Athens, and the gap against Kolonaki ten minutes uphill is startling. A full meze dinner with wine here can cost less than a single main course in the districts that face the Acropolis.

The reason is simple. Rent, customer base and turnover are all local, so menus and drinks lists are written for people who will come back weekly. Bars in particular pour good house wine at prices that have barely moved in years.

If your budget has an evening or two of slack, spend them here rather than in the postcard districts.

What to eat

Mezedopoleia around the square, souvlaki counters on the main streets, and a good number of cheap ethnic kitchens. Exarchia has the widest range of non-Greek food in central Athens, a byproduct of decades of students, immigrants and political exiles settling here, so you can eat across several continents within two streets of the Polytechnic. Portions follow the student logic, which means large and cheap rather than delicate.

Sit-down tavernas share the blocks with takeaway counters, and both fill up late, as the district eats on its own schedule. If your Greek is limited, menus in English are normal but the spoken menu is often more generous. Where to eat in Athens has the vocabulary that works everywhere, and it is worth ten minutes of reading before you order.

Music

Rebetiko, jazz and rock rooms, most of them small, most of them starting late and none of them staged for visitors. This is a district with bookshops, record shops and a long student population, and the live music follows from that. Bands play to people who know them, not to tour groups, so sets often begin after eleven and run well past midnight.

Door charges, where they exist, are modest and sometimes include a drink. If you want live Greek music that is not a floor show for restaurant customers, this district and Psyri are where to look. Wander the smaller streets off the square rather than the square itself, listen for sound carrying from basement doors, and go in.

The rooms are friendly, the audiences mixed across generations, and nobody will mind an unfamiliar face.

Day to day

It is a densely populated central neighbourhood full of students, families and shops, and by day it is unremarkable. The ordinary caution of any European city centre applies. Keep pockets and phones secure, keep some awareness at night, and stop there.

Exarchia has more graffiti and more police at its edges than most districts, and neither is aimed at you. The streets between the square and the National Archaeological Museum are busy with foot traffic through the evening, which is itself a comfort. A great deal of what visitors read about Exarchia describes the situation a decade ago, when confrontations were more frequent and more destructive.

Today the district is a functioning residential centre with an unusually good café and bar scene. Treat it as that, and walk through it with the same ease you would give any part of central Athens.

The specific things to know

Demonstrations are announced in advance and concentrate around the Polytechnic and the square, mostly in the evening and on fixed anniversaries such as 17 November, which marks the 1973 tank assault on the Polytechnic, and 6 December. Tear gas is used at some of them, and it drifts several streets beyond the march itself, so distance is the only reliable protection. If one is called, the practical advice is the same as anywhere.

Eat somewhere else that night, keep your hotel reachable on foot or by an unaffected metro line, and do not linger to film the front line. Shops around the square often close early on the big dates without treating it as an emergency. During public-sector strikes, check service notices before travelling, since transport disruptions elsewhere in the city can leave you walking home late.

The honest caveat

There is an open drug scene in parts of the district and around Omonia to the south-west, and it is visible. You may see people injecting in doorways or asleep in the street, particularly in the blocks between Exarchia square and Omonia in the early morning and late at night. It is a public-health situation rather than a threat to passers-by, and it has persisted through successive city administrations because the underlying problems are national rather than local.

People who would find it distressing, especially those travelling with children, should know it is there and route accordingly. It does not cancel the rest of the district. The cafes, tavernas and music rooms are a few minutes away and entirely unaffected.

Adjust your route, not your plans, and the neighbourhood will reward you.