Vasilissis Sofias Avenue

The passage of the Daniel storm system through the Greek capital on Wednesday caused serious traffic disruptions, turning many central thoroughfares into rivers, while several metro and train stations were forced to temporarily shut down after taking in water.

Flooding has been reported on a number of streets in Athens as Storm Daniel, which has caused havoc in many parts of the country for the past three days, reached the capital.

The rainfall began in the morning but by 4 p.m., the situation had deteriorated in many areas, with heavy downpours and intense lightening in the capital and Piraeus.

Residents and passers-by on Vassilissis Sofias Avenue in central Athens have been getting a first taste in recent weeks of the new era of the iconic complex that housed the Hilton Hotel for six decades, as the construction of the frame of a new, independent 1,100-square meter building in the area of the swimming pool has been completed and has immediately started turning heads.

A 50-year-old man was killed in central Athens early Thursday morning when he was hit by a car while trying to cross a busy avenue.

The man was jaywalking across the southbound lane of Alexandras Avenue at around 1 a.m. when he was struck by a car driven by a 44-year-old woman.

Due to the May 1 union rallies, large parts of central Athens city center will be closed to traffic Monday and public transport services will be limited.

All three Metro lines and tram services will be shut down all day, as employees stage a 24-hour stoppage.

Despite warnings from experts about the proliferation of the novel coronavirus in the Greek capital and the new hard lockdown, commuters and motorists continue to be a headache for the government as it seeks to reduce public mobility.

Saturday evenings and Sundays make you painfully aware that there's a pandemic, as the center of Athens is like a desert landscape come Saturday afternoon. Thoroughfares like Solonos Street, especially, become ghosts of their former selves. Combined with the early nightfall and chilly weather, you definitely feel that something's wrong.

Police in central Athens have closed several central metro stations after hundreds of people gathered on Syntagma Square in solidarity with demonstrators in the United States protesting the death of a black man in police custody last month.

About 300 supporters of the Greek Communist Party's youth wing demonstrated outside the American embassy in Athens on Monday afternoon, to protest against police violence and show solidarity with demonstrators in the US over the death of George Floyd while in police custody.

Existential fear is a strange thing. You feel you may never embrace the people you love again, never have the chance to apologize about any bridges you may have burned without good reason, never again set eyes on your favorite Aegean island chapel and see the Greek flag waving. You are gripped by an inexplicable anguish that you will never again see things that you had once barely noticed.