Under the magical shadow of the Acropolis, on its northern and eastern slopes, fortunately still resist the relentless time and human barbarity, Monastiraki and Plaka. Two unique neighborhoods that for six thousand years condense Athenian continuity, teeming with life. And they have the privilege of claiming the title of the oldest, most historic, and most significant neighborhoods of Western civilization. Thanks to these wonderful events that took place thousands of years ago, in Monastiraki and Plaka, these places will always be "full of gods". After all, "mankind knows that even God is a Plaka resident!"

"Only a person with the sensibility of Mrs. Skoumpourdi could speak with such knowledge, love, kindness - but also pain - about the difficulties of this city: about the destruction by the "barbarians" and the Christians from the 3rd to the 7th century; about the siege of Morozini and the explosion of the Parthenon in the 17th century; about the magnificent buildings that Athens acquired as the capital in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, only to see them demolished, vandalized, destroyed by war and the civil conflicts of the 1940s and the "neo-Hellenic barbarity" of post-war Greece.
We need many Skoumpourdis. We need many who will love again and in a substantial way this "magical city", Athens. More than ever, today we need to love and approach again our place, our cities, and our villages. Our capital. Ourselves. We need to find our storyteller, our wise narrator - for our good and our bad, our positives and our negatives - just as Athens has found its own in the person of Mrs. Skoumpourdi."

Maria D. Efthymiou
Associate Professor of History, University of Athens