Athens is very urban, with lots of apartment buildings (3-6 floors high, generally), with beautifully landscaped areas below them. Here are some examples.
Even the balconies are landscaped, to give those who don't live on the ground floor a sense of being in a gardenscape. The picture below is of a gorgeous jasmine vine cascading over a balcony.
But the playgrounds....not so nice. Covered in gravel, with concrete holding down the equipment, loosely covered with rubber tiles that have mostly come loose. And the graffiti!
These are not neglected playgrounds! They are full of kids in the morning and evening, and teenagers at night. There is a lot of graffiti in Athens, all over the buildings, so I guess I'm not surprised, but the gap between the inside (the courtyards and gardens enclosed behind fences or on balconies) and outside (public space, streets, playgrounds) is to my American eyes very strange.
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