In Athens, Work Before Play

Inspired by the sight, I head to the subway, whose one old line has been fortified with several new lines and sparkling-new subway stations that are a little like mini-convention centers. In the Syntagma station, a cheese company has set up a convention-style temporary exhibit, and a giant flat-screen television broadcasts a show about Greek islands. Before going down the escalator to the train platforms, I spend half an hour looking in glass cases at the bronze, marble and clay antiquities unearthed at this spot during construction.

Nearly anywhere you dig in Athens, you find ancient treasures, Paparsenos has told me. Rather than move the finds to one of the country's dozens of museums, officials decided to display what they found when digging subway stations at the stations themselves. The best displays are at the Syntagma, Akropoli, Monastiraki and Panepistimio stations.

Upon exiting the subway at the Acropolis stop, I come upon perhaps the best improvement in Athens -- the so-called Unification of the Archaeological Sites of Athens. The project has linked major sites with pedestrian walkways that meander past the Parthenon, Hadrian's Arch, Panathenaic Stadium, Temple of Zeus, Kerameikos cemetery and other major cultural sites.

To beautify the area, the government has ordered the dismantlement of nearly 10,000 billboards. Along the route, you can stop at dozens of restaurants, many with outdoor cafes. At the base of the Acropolis, the new Acropolis Museum is slated to open in time for the Olympics, and if Britain ever gets a conscience and returns to Greece the Elgin Marbles, they will eventually be displayed there.

Entire neighborhoods in Athens have been rehabilitated: An area called Gazi, where the old gasworks plants stood, has been turned into a mecca of restaurants and nightclubs. A rundown working-class neighborhood called Psirri is now sparkling with shops and galleries.

Outside Athens, every museum I visit around the Peloponnese and Delphi areas is closed for renovation, but due to open for the Olympics.

The ancient sites Panathinaiko and Marathon will be used during the modern games. New venues have been built with an eye toward permanent use. For instance, the new Olympic Rowing and Canoeing-Kayaking Centre in Attica will be used after the Games as a training center for teams from around the world. The Olympic Weightlifting Hall was given great acoustics and an amphitheater shape so it can be used post-Olympics for cultural events. Ditto for the new center for gymnastics and table tennis.

The new Faliro Olympic Complex, one of the largest urban redevelopment projects in Europe, sits along the Athens coast. The venue includes a new seafront esplanade that will be open long after the Olympics are gone. And outside Athens, the Olympic Sailing Centre will, after the Games, welcome tourists and residents for a variety of water sports. Both the Olympic Equestrian Centre and the Olympic Shooting Centre are also permanent additions. The old airport outside Athens is being turned into a 21-square-mile park. Nearly everything you see during the Olympics will remain, enriching the cultural and sports landscape for generations to come.

An estimated 12,000 Americans will attend the Summer Games this year, compared with the 18,000 who went to Sydney four years ago. On the one hand, this means that plenty of tickets remain available.

The usual routine is that you order what you want and find out about 15 days later if you succeeded, says Bonnie Keilbach, an Olympic specialist for Cartan Tours, the official Olympic sales outlet in the United States. As of press time, the only events known to be sold out were the swimming finals and the cheapest category of tickets for the opening and closing ceremonies.