First Impressions of Athens 2004

I've just watched the opening ceremony. It looked less spectacular than the one in Sidney four years ago. But the mere fact that the Olympiad happened is a great achievement for Greeks and they probably didn't feel the need to impress the world with extra razzmatazz. They chose quality over quantity. The opening ceremony perhaps lacked tens of thousands of extras but the way in which they covered millennia of Greek history was very effective.