Gamble of chancellor's trip pays off At one point during Tuesday's visit to Athens by Angela Merkel, television footage showed the Greek and German leaders chatting animatedly as they strolled down a leafy avenue to the presidential mansion without a bodyguard in view. The contrast with images of riot police firing teargas at angry demonstrators outside parliament just a few blocks away could hardly have been greater. Yet the demonstration appeared tame compared with previous battles between armoured police and protesters hurling firebombs. Prime minister Antonis Samaras's gamble of inviting the German chancellor to visit - while another controversial austerity package is still under discussion with international lenders - paid off, in the view of local analysts, even kindling hopes that German investors would start to look more favourably on Greece. "The overall balance sheet is very positive," said Loukas Tsoukalis, head of Eliamep, an Athens think-tank. Worries that Ms Merkel would be publicly critical of Greece's past failures to hit reform targets, thereby strengthening the positions of anti-bailout political parties, proved unfounded. "She was careful not to sound like a teacher chastising a wayward pupil ... it was appreciated," said an analyst who declined to be identified. Even though Ms Merkel, displaying her trademark caution, stopped short of declaring that Greece's place in the eurozone was secure, her presence in Athens did much to encourage Mr Samaras and his economic team as they struggle to identify €9bn of budget cuts in 2013 and qualify for a much delayed €31bn loan instalment. This visit has improved our credibility ... It has cracked the sense of international isolation we felt, which was partly due to our own mistakes," Mr Samaras said. It can only be beneficial. Ms Merkel, standing next to Mr Samaras, said she would like Greece to stay in the euro, describing the two countries as "partners and friends." She acknowledged several times how hard austerity had been on many Greeks but urged the country to stay the course. I came here knowing full well that the period Greece is living through is an extraordinarily hard one for its people, that many people are suffering and that much is being demanded from them. And that's why I want to say a large part of the path is behind us," she said. Much has been done, a number of things remain to be done. She said a report, upon which the loan disbursement to Athens depends, by the troika of international lenders - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF - should not be rushed. We'll get the troika report when it's ready. Here too, thoroughness must come before speed. From Ms Merkel's point of view, her symbolic day trip to Greece had very tangible political benefits a year away from a general election in which she is likely to face attacks from the left for a lack of leadership and empathy in Europe, and murmurings from the right that Germany will pay too high a price to save the euro. Most obviously, the visit displayed physical courage, given German public nervousness around any sign of disorder in the streets. But it also allowed her to deliver a tough, but compassionate, message that while austerity and structural reform were absolutely necessary, Germany as a nation was not blind to the hardships that many ordinary Greeks were suffering. "Were Greece not so small and ultimately irrelevant to the big fat EU, you could say she is daring to tread into the lion's den," Thomas Schmid, publisher of the conservative Die Welt newspaper, wrote in an approving commentary. But she also "wants to show ... that her heart bleeds when she thinks of Greece. She wants to prove that she understands the pain that the Greeks are expected to endure.