Sunlight saturates the square, turning white wine and whiter faces the golden shades of Greece. Wild gypsy music streams over the crowd's chatter, the clank of plates and shrieks of giddy children.

Waiters bob and weave among the minotaur's maze of tables (indeed, some seem forever lost to hungry customers). Their trays are laden with delicacies: potato-garlic sauce, marinated peppers, pickled octopus, stuffed vine leaves, deep-fried eggplant and plump black Kalamata olives, drenched in olive oil and spangled with oregano.

Fat wedges of feta crumble over scarlet tomatoes and crescents of cucumber. Pastries ooze honey and crushed nuts. Milky ouzo swirls in glass tumblers.

Overhead, flowers bloom on wrought-iron balconies. The buildings are freshly-painted in the charming pastel palette of the Mediterranean, topped with chalky pink terracotta tiles. The diners linger for hours, savoring the array of appetizers (mezedes).

Ten years ago, this vibrant neighborhood was a slum. Just another crumbling ghetto in Athens, the city that sneered at urban planning. But the Psiri district was swept up in a wave of gentrification, as the capital prepares to host the 2004 Olympics.

Athens hopes to remove all scaffolding from the Parthenon before the Olympics. However, Britain shows little sign of returning the friezes in time - or at all.

Greece has its work cut out, reversing centuries of neglect. Athens swiftly declined from marble marvel to concrete clutter. The elegant "Cradle of Democracy" fell into squalor after the Roman Empire collapsed. Synesius of Crete, despite being a bishop, cursed his arrival here in AD 395: "May the sailor who brought me here die miserably: Athens contains nothing magnificent but place names ... Where are your glories, wretchedest of cities?"

Four centuries of Ottoman rule further crippled the city's style: Athens has no great Renaissance palaces and cathedrals. The 1821 revolution evicted the Turks, but left the poverty-striken metropolis full of shanties. (CONTINUE...)