Greece transfixed by charity scandal

Everywhere I went today, people were scanning headlines (in actual newspapers!) about Father Antonios, a celebrated Orthodox priest at the center of a scandal involving his Ark of the World charity. Greek authorities are looking into allegations of sexual and physical abuse against kids in the Ark's residences. Prosecutors are also looking into how the press got wind of the case file, so this is getting juicy.

Antonios says this is the first he's heard of it.

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Parting observations

The city has a lovely, decaying quality — both doomed and beautiful. I suspect that inheritors of many properties are waiting for just the right offer. Athens is the size of Chicago but in many ways remains a village. As for the rest of Greece? After emerging from bankruptcy, it is back in the EU's good graces. Yet prices are uncomfortably high, tax evasion is real problem, and people continue to arrive on little boats. The capital is an intoxicating place. Waiting for an elevator that is just wide enough for my elbows, I hear Arabic and Indian music leaking from my neighbors' doors. I want so much for them to invite me inside, offer me tea and an uncommon biscuit. Yes, I have an active fantasy life. So many dogs to pet! I home in on the handsomest breed, telling this guy his beagle was well-marked. "Thank you. But he is a little crazy." You don't say! Half the traffic in the city center involves small-displacement motorcycles carrying puffy tourquoise food...

I arrive

Piles of rocks

The Agora, where Socrates and Aristotle held forth, where the Apostle Paul preached and the terms of democracy were hammered out, is a grassy park and pleasant place to wander around. For the visitor on a tight schedule it can seem to be a confusing hodgepodge of ruins. I suggest setting the details aside and chilling in the shade of its olive, cypress and poplar trees. It was also the site of a busy marketplace. In a discussion of phobias in his book "On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored," Adam Phillips scrapes away at the roots of the word "agoraphobia." The agora was "that ancient place where words and goods and money were exchanged," he writes. Confronted with open space, "the agoraphobic fears that something nasty will be exchanged." That's a big ten-four. I made my stroll with a young Brit who had arrived the day before. Her phone and credit cards were stolen at the airport's metro platform, where this travelog began . Luckily she...

336 hours in Athens

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