Athens Olympic Park – O.A.K.A

As is known, Athens hosted the Summer Olympics in 2004. In connection with that, the city experienced a major refurbishment: A brand new airport was built, the subway system was expanded with two new lines (the red and the blue one) and of course major sport complexes had to be built, mainly here in Athens but also in places outside of the capital.

Irini – an area in Athen’s northern parts belonging to the municipality of Marousi – became the scene for most of the contests. Among other things, here they built a large arena with room for 85,000 spectators, a basketball arena, a swimming arena plus one for diving and a velodrome. All of this was created by the spanish architect S. Calatrava and is called O.A.K.A (the Olympic Athletic Center of Athens).

At first sight, this huge area today looks very worn out. Which it also is. The care for this arena-area is not of high priority as it is. Once there where open areas with gravel and asphalt here. Now trees and weeds have taken over. But this is only on the outside. All arenas are actually being used. At the athletic stadium, football is played regularelly as AEK Athens has this arena as their temporary home field. In the swimming pools people are still swimming and diving and in the basketball arena AEK Athens are playing their home matches and share it with a number of youth teams. Even if the area is run down it is used to its fullest.

Many people are coming here to exercise or to walk their dogs on the very big and open space which is located in the middle of all the various arenas. If you want to get around the entire surface, you should be prepared for a walk of about 2,5 km. So there is plenty of room for different activities such as: running, cycling, walki1ng etc.

In the summer, there are often concerts held here. For example, U2, The Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili-peppers have played here but also music festivals like The Color Festival are organized here. See this link for more: http://www.oaka.com.gr/category/activities/events/?lang=en11

From the Olympic Area, it is close to two major shopping malls: The Golden Hall and The Mall, of which the first has a slightly more luxurious range. The Mall is like the typical mall with all that that means. With its four floors you can find anything you need here plus a cinema, a big food court and one gaming area with billiards, bowling and arcade games.