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Longer opening hours for the Acropolis in Athens

The Acropolis in Athens is now going to be open for longer. It is already better than it used to be though, as I remember visiting it in the 1990s, when it seemed that it was barely open in the afternoons during the winter months.

From:
The Independent [1]

Longer opening hours for Athens Acropolis
AFP
Saturday, 21 May 2011

Greece is to extend the opening hours of the Acropolis in Athens due to public demand, Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanosin announced Thursday.

The site will open from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) to 19:00 pm (1600 GMT) year-round after staffing changes prompted by a restructure of the country’s public bodies.

“It’s a first,” said Geroulanosin, who added that longer hours had been desired “for a long time.”

Until now the Unesco World Heritage Site, home to the Parthenon, opened from 8:00 am to 17:00 pm from September to April and until sunset during the remainder of the year.

This meant it sometimes closed as early as 15:00 pm, to the disappointment of tourists who travel hundreds of miles to see the Acropolis, one of Greece’s most visited sites which attracts about a million people each year.