TOURISTS planning to visit museums and archaeological sites in Greece will find many closed this month because of a strike by culture ministry employees demanding more money, union officials said.
The Acropolis, which is visited by millions of tourists in Athens every year, will be closed on Thursday and Friday. "We are sorry about the tourists and we understand their problem. That's why we are shutting a few sites at a time and not all at once," the president of the union of museum and sites guards, Mr Yannis Dimakopoulos, said.
After successfully closing several museums and sites around the country on Thursday and yesterday, the union vowed to continue with more.
The sprawling site of ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese, the Acropolis of Lindos on Rhodes, the Minoan palace of Knossos on Crete and the Cycladic settlement of Akrotiri on Santorini were closed on Thursday and yesterday.
On Monday and Tuesday, the union will strike at the archaeological museum in the northern city of Thessaloniki, the ancient sites in Corinth and the Mycaenean Acropolis.
Along with the Acropolis in Athens, the temple of Zeus at Sounion near Athens and the site of the ancient oracle of Delphi will also shut on Thursday and Friday.