“This is a place you feel, not see”: why everyone is falling in love with Athens right now

When I first visited some 12 years ago, I immediately felt at home in the raw, messy and poetic temperament of Athens. I was born in Tehran, but my family immigrated to Canada when I was seven, and I later moved to London in my early 20s, where I lived for over a decade, though I felt displaced in both countries. Athens felt like the Tehran I remembered but couldn’t go back to. I moved here a few months ago.

Athenians themselves will tell you, “We are from the east, not the west”. It is…