After a week of vacation in Greece spent sipping freddo espressos in little cafés, lingering for hours over taverna dinners, and seeing locals enjoy a seemingly leisurely lifestyle, you might start to wonder: Could I live here?
This happened to me, too. I grew up in Boston, but fell in love with Athens the first time I visited. I’d quit my job to travel for a year — and I liked Greece so much that, after that year ended, I moved here.
In 2022, I became a resident, and I bought an apartment here a few years later. I adore my life in Athens, but I’ve learned that the reality of a slow life is very different from the fantasy.
So many things shut down in early August
In my central Athens neighborhood, almost every shop and most cafés and restaurants close for at least two weeks in August as Athenians leave en masse for islands and villages to enjoy time off.
To many Americans, the idea of taking at least two consecutive weeks off sounds romantic. I can understand the appeal; I’d never been able to take this much vacation time while living in the US.
But with so many people on vacation at the same time, life can get tricky. I need to tackle any bureaucratic tasks well in advance, plan my grocery shopping carefully, and deal with longer public-transit wait times because of reduced summer schedules.
Of course, this isn’t the case for absolutely everyone. I’ve known people in the tourism industry who work 14-hour days during the peak summer months — another downside of life here, and a reminder that not everyone can enjoy the benefits of “slow living.”
Slow weekends are lovely but require planning
My weekends in Greece look very different from how they did in America. On Sundays, most supermarkets, shops, and even major international retailers in my neighborhood are closed. A lot of smaller shops near me close early on Saturdays, too.
The hustle required to get everything you need done after a long workweek is real. I’m rarely lounging in bed, slowly sipping a coffee on Saturday morning.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad that there’s a day almost everyone has off. I love that in Greece, Sunday is a day for meeting up with friends and family and relaxing, not running errands.
But occasionally, I do miss the convenience of being able to shop on a Sunday.
‘Tomorrow’ does not always mean tomorrow
From dealing with contractors for my apartment renovations to delivery services, I’ve learned that when someone here tells you they will come “ávrio,” or “tomorrow,” that’s not a promise of a fixed date.
Usually, it means “later”: maybe tomorrow, if all the stars align, or in a few days, a week, or sometime before summer is over. “Tomorrow” is often followed by “it depends” and a shrug.
That kind of flexibility is wonderful when it’s on your terms — but when you’re waiting days for an electrician to install functional lights in your new apartment, it can be frustrating.
This has been a big adjustment from living in Boston, where “tomorrow” usually meant the very next day.
Still, there are things I love about my pace of life here
Although there are parts of my lifestyle here that feel less than ideal, I do deeply enjoy living in Greece.
I like that my friends here will make spontaneous, day-of plans to grab coffee, instead of penciling me in a month in advance. I love nothing more than a four-hour dinner on a warm summer night where the waiter never hustles us out, or spending all Sunday at the beach just reading a book.
The fantasy of a perfectly slow life in the Mediterranean is just that, though: a fantasy. What is heavenly on vacation can be very different when you’re building a life here.
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