Sleep in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Former Athenian Bolthole — I Did!
During the Beatle's 1969 sojourn, a Greek fortuneteller made a startling prediction
I didn’t realize it at the time, but in the summer of 2018 I stayed for a number of weeks in an apartment in Athens where in November 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed for a number of days.
This was in Kolonaki, the tony nabe that unfolds like a fan — or a Beatles fan— behind Syntagma Square and follows the contours of Mount Lycabettus. This is not everybody’s favorite section of Athens because what it has in spiffy cafes and pricey boutiques it arguably lacks in soul, but it is very central and a part of the modern Athenian fabric.
If you follow a street called Pindarou you will gradually ascend higher and higher, with the Acropolis behind you and Mount Lycabettus looming directly overhead. By the time you reach the cross street of Fokilidou, toward the top, the street becomes so narrow and so steep that there are no cars, just staircases: think Montmartre, à la sauce Athenienne. Where the street veers into Xanthippou is the building where the couple stayed for a while that fall, at the garden level where there are currently two large studio-style apartments.
How did John and Yoko end up at this lofty Kolonaki perch? In Greece it’s all about who you know, and Lennon already knew a Greek fellow named Alexis Mardas, better known to Beatles fans as Magic Alex. Sources say the Mardas family owned property in the building, and staying there was a discreet alternative to glitzy hotels like the Grand Bretagne.
Incidentally, while 1969 means a lot of things to a lot of people, it was not exactly a glorious time in Greece: a military junta was in power.
Still, Lennon managed to have quite an interesting time in the Greek capital. He had a press conference. He went to Hydra. He saw not one but two fortunetellers, one of whom, a woman, warned him about an event she foresaw happening in the future on an island that wasn’t Hydra.
Google, by the way, is already on to this. At the corner I just mentioned, if you look it up on Google maps, the description “John Lennon & Yoko Ono photo” appears. Here is that photo:
The street sign is for Stratiotikou Sindesmou (which means “military association”) Street, which crosses Pindarou at its terminus.
What is the apartment like today, and how did I find it? I found it to be quiet and nice, but there were lots of mosquitos at night.