Our house sparkled in the Attic light. It had monumental architecture, its own atmosphere, and an aura of grandeur. This aura stemmed from the glorious past of our ancestors. It stood out in the area due to its impressive aesthetics, location, and volume. It had a wonderful view of the Acropolis, the Hill of the Nymphs, Hymettus, the Ilissos River, and Elaionas, all the way down to Phaleron. Behind it were hills, orchards, vineyards, ravines, and the uphill path of Kolonaki, a countryside area full of trails, rocks, wild herbs, shrubs, bindweed, wild cardoon, and pines. It was permanently soaked with the stench of sour milk, cheese, and urine, because that was where Prokopis Tzekos, the goatherd known as Bes, kept his herds, and who brought us milk every morning, thick and frothy, with a pale yellow cream that left a layer of fat on the palate and a mysterious aftertaste in the mouth, like an appetite for life.
That house was what my mother had wished for, a worldly woman with an opinion on everything: majestic and sturdy to safely shelter the next generations. That was how she had dreamed it, coming in 1836 from Constantinople to Athens. That dream of erecting a monumental mansion was realized four years later, in 1840, after the German architect Friedrich Gärtner designed the Palace Square and laid out Amalias Avenue and Athens-Kifisias Avenue.