Athens – Protests, Riots and Repairs
As it was likely much would be closed in Athens given the commemoration of the second anniversary of the Tempi train disaster, we headed down the coast to Lavrion.
There was a protest going on there, but it was all amicable and friendly with families taking part.
I think this is talking about putting profit over people. Incidentally, I hope that isn’t a baby snake at the base of the photo.
As an aside, there was a lot of littering of these leaflets.
It meant that everything was closed for three hours in the town. A helpful local stopped their car to check if we needed any help given that everything was closed. It did mean that the restaurants, shops and the like were all closed, so we watched some of the protests and then walked down to the marina. It was impressive how well attended the protests were and how nothing remained open during this time.
57 people died on 28 February 2023 when two trains crashed into each other head-on, with another 81 heavily injured and 99 lightly injured. The infra-structure of the rail network is highly problematic in Greece and it’s argued by many that little is being done to improve it. That was the base for the protests and demonstrations.
Back in Athens later on, we saw this graffiti written on the National University.
It was repainted within hours and I was quite impressed with their efficiency. It’s visible through the first coat of paint, but I’m sure that the second coat went down so after and all remnants of the graffiti are gone.
The damage from firebombs thrown towards the Parliament building was being cleared up. There’s more coverage of the rioting at the Guardian web-site.
There were numerous burnt out bins near the Parliament building.
But they were swiftly removed within a few hours and I’m sure the new replacements are already in situ.
There’s more about the rail accident at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempi_train_crash, the more I read about it the more horrendous the situation evidently is, so the reason for the demonstrations has become ever clearer to me.