ATHENS – The criteria wasn’t explained but Athens will take it – rated the 6th Most Beautiful City in the world, ahead of renowned places such as Paris, Budapest, Venice, Boston, Kyoto, Florence, Amsterdam and Sydney.

That was according to the World of Statistics and immediately drew the attention of Hellenophile web sites around the world touting Greece’s capital city that’s not known for beauty or charm, but has a buzz.

Athens was behind only Venice, Rome, Barcelona, Prague and New York and ahead of Budapest, Vienna, Bordeaux and Milan, the rating coming as Greece is on a path to bust tourist records during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Tourism had begun a major campaign to promote Athens as a destination after years of seeing it being a jumping-off point to get to islands.

The slogan for the city is Greekend: End Your Week Like a Greek to go along with the national campaign of All You Want is Greece which was designed to promote the beautiful side of life in Greek cities.