It was more than two decades ago, and I was a backpacker arriving in Athens for the first time. The Summer Games were coming to town. While the Greek capital had been operating a metro dating back to 1869, the system had been extended and renovated in anticipation of the Olympics. At that time—2003—some things were marked in English. But many, still, were not.
This was an age before smart phones and translation apps and internet availability all the time, at your fingertips. The resources I had, at that moment, were rather meagre. Mostly, I made my way to my super-basic accommodations using a simple map in my thick Lonely Planet guide. That, and a few memory tricks.
