Hotel Hope

It began as a tourist destination, but now it’s a haven for refugees from the world’s war zones. Meet the guests of Athens’ happiest hotel.

- Greg Donahue

City Plaza Hotel is bustling. But the sound of fax machines has been replaced by cellphones playing Farsi pop music. The ding of elevator doors is gone, swapped out for the clatter of dice and backgammon chips. Rooms are decorated with handwritten Arabic blessings where “Do Not Disturb” signs once hung. In fact, these days it’s tougher than ever to get a reservation. The hotel offers few amenities, but City Plaza is, according to the 400 refugees who now call it home, “the best hotel in Europe”.

Smack bang in Athens’ city centre and boasting a rooftop bar with dazzling sunset views of the Acropolis, City Plaza Hotel enjoyed a few brief years as a hub for business travellers and tourists following its development just in time for the 2004 Olympic Games.

But when the 2010 debt crisis collapsed the Greek economy, business dried up and City Plaza’s owner abandoned the property, fleeing with the last remaining wages meant for her employees. Reduced to a symbol of the country’s economic turmoil, the hotel sat empty, gathering dust for six years.

Then came the refugees. When Turkey and the European Union signed an agreement meant to stem the flow of migrants from the Middle East in April 2016, Greece’s northern border was closed and nearly 60,000 asylum seekers were stuck in camps across the country.

“You come to Europe to survive, you want to save your life. Then you come to the camp and the war in Syria is better than this place,” says City Plaza resident Moustafa Haj Rashid of his experiences in the disease-ridden camps where he found himself living in Greece. “If you had an animal, you don’t leave your animals there. How is [it] for people?”