Ein Brief aus Patras

Patras is a port and the third largest city of Greece, best known for politicians, a peculiar accent and a great passion for the carnival. Patras bears the legacy of great prosperity which was lost somewhere in the first decades of the 20th century, but is still alive in the minds of its people, who remember how commerce and industry flourished before they gave way to financial problems and crisis.

Today, the city is a medley of the architectural “misbehaving” which has plagued the country, in imitation of a – now – rejected model of Athens, and old houses, reminiscent of the city’s past glory. Traffic in the narrow streets is heavy at rush hours and late at night, as the people of Patras flock to the town center, which is close to the picturesque steps near the Roman Odeon, the Roman Fortress and the numerous St. Nicolas, St. Georges et al (not to mention the patron saint of the city – the much revered Saint ­Andrew).
In 2006, Patras was pronounced Cultural Capital of Europe, a title which many doubted, especially after the ordeal of Thessaloniki‘s term as Cultural Capital in 1997, which notoriously ended knee-deep in debt, ­rumors of embezzlement and an organizational machine ...