4:41 p.m. A few stray stall-holders sell pistachios and trinkets around Monastiraki train station, but the flea market is over and Ifaistou Street is deserted. The wail of the accordion leads me to Avyssinias Square. The antique stores are shut, and the street-sellers are sweeping up, but anarchy reigns in Cafe Avyssinias. The remains of brains, snails, and saltfish litter the tables and the ground. A motley crew of tone-deaf revellers accompanies the gypsy singer, who flaunts her curves and jangles her tambourine to egg them on. The unsmiling accordion player looks depressed. I try to ascertain whether the boot-polish black haystack on his head is a wig or proof positive of a bad-hair day. "We're all eligible here!" yells a lascivious blonde (fake, of course), and I cruise before I'm paired off with some balding alcoholic.

5:30 p.m. I cross Ermou Street and enter the heart of Psirri. Despite the recent epidemic of imitative ethnic bars and retro restaurants, Psirri retains an alluring inner-city authenticity. A barber sharpens a cut-throat razor; an iconographer is hunched over his canvas; a saddler waxes his wares. Cheeky gypsy kids with drums bigger than their bellies serenade the crowds of young professionals gathered in the mezethopoleia on Aghios Anargyros and Taki Streets, while a pair of slackers jam on the baglamas and bouzouki at Plateia Iroon. The clapping is contagious. If I sit down, I will never get up, so I keep walking.

6:20 p.m. Beyond the ancient site of Kerameikos, the urban jungle begins. On Pireos Street I am confronted by the metal skeleton of Gazi-a disused gas plant that hosts progressive exhibitions, concerts, and performances. Still half-built, tractors, bricks, and dust add a touch of industrial realism. The current cinematic-photographic exhibition is aptly entitled "Athenians Before the Year 2000"-a kaleidoscope of contemporary characters whom I see every day but usually look right through: Filipino maids and Orthodox priests, shoe-shiners and organ-grinders, teenagers toting mobile phones and grannies force-feeding pudgy infants. The Gazi Bar is cartoon bright. Bohemians philosophise amid the red-and-yellow gas pipes. Too befuddled for Socratic debate, I wander aimlessly into the square, where a bunch of Kurdish immigrants are hanging out. The down-trodden area around Gazi is best at night, the seedy backdrop for underground theatres and no-nonsense koutoukia like Ierofandis, where musicians rock the rembetika (basically the Greek blues-soulful stuff) The early hours.

7:32 p.m. But now I am chasing the sunset. I hop a cab to Philopappos Hill and join the trail of tourists clambering among the ruins. On the baldpate of Areopagus Hill, a marble portal frames a sprawl of concrete to my right, the Acropolis to my left. The former seems a more realistic picture of contemporary Athens. It is 24 hours since I looked down on the city from Lycabettus. It still seems vast and impenetrable, but I feel I belong here¯I am a tiny piece of this complex puzzle. And I'm not about to give up yet. I scramble over the hill to the secret valley of Pnyx, overlooking an abandoned ancient theatre. There are no tourists here, only some schoolkids staging their own comedy of modern manners.

8:57 p.m. I race back down the dirt paths and cross Apostolou Pavlou Street just in time for tonight's show at the Herod Atticus Theatre. The semi-circle of marble seats soaring up into the starlit sky is already full. The moon is low and delicate. A bird flits between the stone arches behind the stage. Suddenly the murmuring audience is silenced by the resounding boom of a massive drum, and a compact Japanese dancer in a black kimono leaps onto the stage-a lesson in post-modernism.

11:31 p.m. As the crowd filters out, a hushed awe hovers in the air. This is dinnertime for Athenians. Most of the audience will head for one of the classy restaurants nearby, like the haute Greek Symposio or the ultra-refined Pil Poul with its sublime views. I prefer something down-home and unpretentious. To Koutouki is where I come to escape the city. We're in the heart of Athens, yet we could be in the countryside. We squeeze through the lemon-and-lime kitchen where a quartet of twittering women are frying zucchini and minty cheese pies, and surface on the dreamiest roof terrace in Athens. A corner of the Parthenon is just visible behind the green slopes of Philopappos. We settle into our seats and soak up the atmosphere. The retsina slithers down along with warm horta, gigantes, and charcoal-flavoured chicken wings. Owner Panayiotis and his wife Maria used to live here, and you are still treated more like a guest than a customer. "We don't need to advertise. We operate by word of mouth," Panayiotis beams. "People flock here from all over Athens-from Galatsi, Varkiza, Kifissia, Irakleion. People who appreciate the simple, good things in life." If you've been once, you'll keep coming back.

1:38 a.m. We descend in a stuffed and sleepy daze. I am exhausted, but the night is young, and Irakleidon Street in Thisseion is jumping. This is where the Athenian cafe generation congregates. It's like Paris, only rowdier. I follow the tram lines down the street, past a stream of bars and cafes. A jazz band is playing to a crowd of arty thirtysomethings in the courtyard of Stavlos, once King Otto's stables. I opt for the younger, livelier To Kafeneion, where I inevitably run into several familiar faces-in Athens it is virtually impossible to be incognito.