In Athens, everyone is a tourist – no matter where you come from. People come and go. They fall in love. They suffer. They smile. They get on a boat and never look back at the silent buildings of the port that have greeted millions of travellers over the years, all of whom have dreamt of a better life under the Aegean sun. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants live in Athens, many of them Albanians who arrived from Tirana in the 1990s and were welcomed by the signs of the Neon café in Omonia Square, where the big fountain washed away their sins like the Pool of Siloam.

They are not alone. Over the years, the city’s neighbourhoods have become home for many nationalities and their communities, whose flavours, colours and customs have stirred the waters of Athenian life.

The latest wave of immigration was triggered by the economic crisis of 2009, which transformed Athens into a destination for creatives and young people who felt that the lifestyle in cities such as London or New York was becoming too superficial. I want to hear from these new Athenians, people who have decided to make this anarchic concrete jungle their home and who can paint a picture with a palette lighter and more effortless than we Greeks, who view Athens through a lens distorted by the stress that our recent history has imposed on us.

I meet people such as Ms Alix Janta, a Belgian who recently opened an art bookstore and café in Petralona Square. She treats me to a cold coffee while we discuss Athens life.

Does she see herself staying here? “Every time I return to Athens and get out of the airport, the smell in the air makes me feel at home,” she says. “I hope this feeling will remain.”

French-born designer Mr Sebastien Peigné is my upstairs neighbour who fell in love with our neoclassical buildings. He was sick of Paris and wanted to be closer to the sea. One day he writes me a text message that reads, “I can see myself here for ever.”

Swedish-born Mr Martin Vigren grew up in Lapland and first came to Greece as a kid on holiday to escape the harsh winters, but started spending more time in Athens during Covid. On a walk in his neighbourhood, Exarcheia, I ask him what he likes about the city.

“It’s very high-low,” he says. “There is no medium. There are only extremes. You can have extreme glamour and extreme authenticity. I go almost daily on a cab between Vouliagmeni and Exarcheia and the contrast is unreal.”

Ms Julia Gardener is one of the owners of the Athens-based gallery Hot Wheels. We go for a walk around her favourite area, Philopappou, with its modernist buildings in the manner of Le Corbusier, and she describes her wanderings to me over a glass of cold beer.

“When I first came to Athens, I didn’t know if I just wanted to get out of London or move here,” she says. “I have a strong relationship to places, so I know when it becomes stagnant.”

In the three years since she arrived, she has witnessed the city changing, especially in the area where the gallery is, but what attracted her to Athens remains the same.

“What I value here are the simple things,” she says. “People sit and talk. Conversations usually start with, ‘How are you doing?’ and not, ‘What are you doing?’ I have friends in Athens I have known for a while and I have no idea what they are doing. Absolutely no idea. Isn’t that liberating?”

Does Athens feel “real” to her? “Yes,” she says. “I recently left for a while and came back and I felt that it has a pulse, that it breathes. I love the old people of Kolonaki, those well-dressed old couples who have been living there for ever. The fancy shoes and foulard in the morning.”

The next morning, I meet artist Mr Sebastian Lloyd Rees at his studio in a multi-storey industrial building in the Psirri area. There is a sign in the lift that reads: “For commercial use only. No residential apartments allowed in the premises.”

Lloyd Rees says most of the building is rented out as apartments for tourists now. From his window, he shows me a ruined complex from the 1940s, probably an old hotel that catered to another generation of tourists.

“When you are in the centre of Athens, you feel as if you are inside this urban sphere,” he says. “You don’t really think about the sea. You are embraced by concrete, but when you go further out, you realise that the sea is all around you. Tradesmen come and go, people always migrate and move. Athens has so much artistic richness to it and its morphology – the islands, the sea – contributed to that.”

Is he a philhellene? “I’m not entirely sure,” he says. “But for someone like me, who lived around the world in different cities for 13 years, I feel that when you’re in a place that feels right, you stop. I was getting distracted in London and New York. I came here and a new chapter started to open up.”

The idea of ruin and memory is strong in Athens. We climb up the steps to the terrace of the building and stare at the sea of concrete and then at the real sea down in Piraeus, the city’s main port, under the unforgiving Athenian sun.

“Athens is real,” says Lloyd Rees. “It’s raw. It has history, time, sweetness, bitterness, sorrow as well. You can be in the street down here and stand next to a dilapidated building that tells a story. It might have been a hotel that provided economic growth in a different time. And then you go to Kifisia and you are in Beverly Hills.”

Next, I meet the co-owner of Hot Wheels gallery, Mr Hugo Wheeler, at the port. We settle down at a working-class kafeneio tucked away in an alley of ticket offices and over some meatballs and fries we discuss his experience of being an Athenian for more than six years.

“Athens has changed a lot,” he says. “I’m one of the longest-standing people who have moved here. I hear about people coming all the time, but I have no idea who they are. I think I’m in this middle ground of being a local and a foreigner.”

As we drink in the almost empty bar, outside a constant wave of travellers is coming and going every second, unaware of our existence, jumping hastily onto boats to destinations such as Astypalaia, Folegandros, Ikaria and other exotic-sounding places where time has no significance.

“I’m happy finally to have an apartment here,” says Wheeler, who has recently moved into his own place after sleeping in his studio for five years. “I feel like I might settle down, which is cool. I love this city. I love the people. I have amazing friends here. I feel like I’m contributing to an interesting community as well.”

So he’s giving and taking from Athens. “I’m definitely taking,” he says. “I hope I’m giving back, too.”