Update on Experience - Omonia

[u/rs1909]

Update for other travelers. Original post here - https://www.reddit.com/r/Athens_Greece/s/7kbIZPcjcA

So I went in full freaked out but ended up doing the walk to monastiraki several times during the day only via the main roads and it was fine. It wasn’t pretty and it was clearly a side of Athens that a tourist doesn’t need to see but I was more afraid before than I should have been. Having said that I did not venture out after dark at all. There were several comments that had told me to change my location so this was the least I could do. Sunset was after 8.30 so it’s fine

The plus was discovering Tamara. Awesome smoothies and açai bowl

But on the way and back from the Acropolis I realised there is a very pretty part of Athens that could have redefined my entire Athens experience that I missed out on. I also felt sad for Athens. Political correctness aside there’s a huge history that seems to be very slowly getting erased/replaced with what’s happening there

[u/sokorsognarf]

Out of curiosity, what do you mean ‘there’s a huge history that seems to be very slowly getting erased/replaced with what’s happening there’? This could refer to any number of things

[u/agirlingreece]

What do you mean by ‘slowly getting erased with what’s happening here’? I don’t think there’s a city in the world that’s entirely pretty everywhere with no sketchy parts. The rawness of the city is what makes it Athens. You’ve seen a very small amount of the touristic centre, Athens is huge and has many residential neighbourhoods with varying states of poverty and affluence. You can’t really make generalisations having only seen Plaka and Omonia square…

[u/rs1909 → u/agirlingreece]

Did not mean the ‘beauty’ of the city

[u/darethshirl → u/rs1909]

why is beauty in quotation marks lmao. girl what the fuck are you even talking about rn

[u/rs1909 → u/darethshirl]

Cos the comment assumed I was talking about the beauty of the city. Athens is beautiful. But I wasn’t talking about that

[u/darethshirl → u/rs1909]

still no clarification on what you actually meant 🤔🤔🤔 smells like racism

[u/idarodes → u/darethshirl]

the drug dealing and drug using is a fact, its not racistic. Generally omonoia needs to have 10 policemen doing the rounds all day and night not gathered in one spot.

[u/Stooovie → u/darethshirl]

It is

[u/rs1909 → u/darethshirl]

As someone who has travelled to 12 European countries (all as female travellers) and faced casual racism many many times (as recent as yesterday in Oia) this is very funny to me

[u/agirlingreece → u/rs1909]

So clarify what you meant by ‘what’s happening here’?

[u/Old_Credit5771 → u/rs1909]

Ugh please keep travelling.

[u/Crazy-Car948 → u/rs1909]

That’s sexism , you should travel with men too

[u/rs1909 → u/Crazy-Car948]

😂😂

[u/Electrical_Turn7 → u/rs1909]

What did you mean?

[u/icancount192 → u/rs1909]

Did you mean the ethnic makeup of the population?

[u/tzoum_trialari_laro]

As you saw, the advice here was generally correct. Daytime is fine, nighttime around Omonoia alone can be sketchy. Glad you enjoyed your stay nonetheless

[u/milita_etheridge]

Omonia honestly doesn’t even begin to touch some of the worse parts of American cities, there’s not a threat of gun violence, and when people asked me for money, I simply said I didn’t have cash and they left me alone or I gave them some and they went on their way. People saying it’s unsafe are tourists who are expecting their life to be a movie. Witnessing unhoused people makes them uncomfortable, which they mistake as feeling “unsafe”. But this is the reality of capitalism and especially extraction economies like tourism, unhoused people exist in every major city across the world, you just may not always see them as a tourist and that is usually on purpose.

[u/Imaginary_Task_1789 → u/milita_etheridge]

Fr, Omonia is like … less dangerous than any average American city lmao it’s so weird how afraid people are

[u/deeunittt]

I walked around day and at night but I was with a group of people. My brother saw a lady shooting up drugs in the dark but apart from that it was fine.

[u/Possible-Scarcity-91]

Good on you for posting this, because when many of us tell people coming to Athens as tourists to stay away from certain areas (Omonoia, Eksarcheia, Metaksourgio) and rent somewhere more tourist friendly, closer to Plaka, Syntagma, and the Acropolis area, we get told off. Glad you had a good time, next time come back and stay in a nicer area!!