I am working on catching up on two and a half weeks of blogging now that I have an internet connection again. This may take a bit.
In the meantime, please give this a listen. What you are hearing is my walk to St. Irene Church in Monastiraki, starting from about two blocks away, and my subsequent entry into the church towards the end of Orthros.
It takes me, all told, about forty-five minutes or so in terms of raw transit time to get to St. Irene on Sunday morning — usually quite a bit more than that because the bus I have to take to the metro station is, shall we say, spotty at that time of day on that particular day of the week. There is also the reality that things start a good hour and a half or so earlier here than they do at my parish in the States (which is why I’ve only made it for Orthros once). This clip ought to give you an idea, at least in part, as to why that’s worth it to me.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 
There aren’t other parishes closer to you (in Athens!) that offer at least similarly good chanting?
In Pennsylvania, I have two Orthodox churches within 10 minutes – of course, neither have good chanting. In New York, I have the Archdiocesan Cathedral, another Cathedral in Astoria (Greektown, USA) and a Monastery all with good Byz chant – not to mention the Russian Cathedrals with different but very good singing/chanting.
I just thought it funny to hear a story about the length of time it takes to get to church, in Athens.
Well, St. Irene is a special case. Lycourgos Angelopoulos is the protopsaltis, and my chant teacher, Ioannis Arvanitis, is also there.
As I say, it’s worth it.
(By the way, it would take me about twenty minutes to get there if the closest metro stations to where I’m staying weren’t closed for work on extensions to the line.)