ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Heavy snow covered the Acropolis and other ancient monuments in Athens and halted COVID-19 vaccinations in the Greek capital on Tuesday as the weather brought many services across the country to a halt.
As Western Europe got some rest from the winter weather, temperatures in the southeast of the continent dropped and Turkey was also hit by winter storms.
The snow, an unusual sight in Athens, a city of more than 3 million inhabitants, also stopped most public transport services, while fallen trees caused power cuts in several suburbs of the mountain slopes.
Snow is common in the mountains of Greece and in the north of the country, but much rarer in the capital. Some Athenians cautiously emerged outside and took photos on balconies and in the streets.
The snow arrived as Athens and several other parts of Greece were stuck trying to curb coronavirus infections. Schools and most shops are closed and residents must stay indoors during curfews.
Some kids skipped online lessons on Tuesday to play in the snow. Adults also took to playing outside, digging out a pair of skis to use on the capital’s hilly slopes. A man skied down Pnyx Hill in the center of Athens, near the Acropolis.
Norwegian ambassador Frode Overland Andersen tweeted a video of him skiing down a hill with his teenage daughter in the suburb of Filothei.
“Challenge accepted,” he wrote, after a friend in Oslo challenged him to prove that it was really possible to ski in Athens.
“It was the best day at my home office during the lockdown yet,” the ambassador told The Associated Press. “Unfortunately my skis got hit pretty hard so I’m going to wax and prepare for next season.”
Outside the parliament building, orange-colored snowploughs cleared streets of ice and snow, while presidential guards dressed in traditional pleated kilts and pom-pom shoes were given heavy woolen coats.
The cold snap, which has already triggered blizzards across much of Europe, kept temperatures around freezing in Athens on Tuesday, but it is expected to rise abruptly with a high of 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit) expected Thursday. In neighboring Turkey, heavy snow and blizzards forced the closure of a highway in northwestern Turkey. About 600 vehicles were stranded on a nine-kilometer stretch of the snow-covered road, and another 800 more were stranded elsewhere, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
On Tuesday, parts of Greece’s main highway were also closed and most ferry services to the islands were canceled, while flights from regional airports to Athens were disrupted.
Greek fire service spokesman Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis said the service had received more than 600 calls for assistance in greater Athens.
“The calls mainly concerned felled trees and the transport of people trapped in their cars to a safe place, as well as transporting kidney dialysis patients for treatment,” he told state television.
“Vaccinations have been delayed, but we have helped move doctors and medical personnel where they are needed, and we have helped power engineers reach damaged power pylons in areas where access was difficult,” said Vathrakoyiannis.
Power and water outages have also been reported in Central Greece. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with emergency response leaders to help residents in darkened areas and villages cut off by the snow.
“We obviously recommend that great caution is exercised in all movements, any unnecessary movement should be avoided,” Mitsotakis said after the meeting, adding that the authorities were doing everything they could to keep the roads open and restore the flow to areas without electricity.
“I think we will all show patience when we deal with a phenomenon that is truly unprecedented,” he added. ___ Follow Becatoros at https://twitter.com/ElenaBec and Gatopoulos at https://twitter.com/dgatopoulos ___ Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey and Thanassis Stavrakis, Petros Giannakouris and Srdjan Nedeljkovic in Athens contributed.