The religious holiday of Clean Monday, marking the first three-day weekend of the year, has witnessed tens of thousands of city dwellers exit Greece’s urban areas for the getaway.
Traffic on highways leading away from the greater Athens-Piraeus area was heavy on Saturday morning, with inter-city buses, suburban train routes and flights near capacity.
According to police, in the span of 24 hours since 6 a.m. on Friday 95,867 vehicles have departed Attica prefecture. Specifically, 53,835 vehicles passed through tolls on the Athens-Corinth highway and 42,041 on the Athens-Lamia highway.
To prevent traffic jams or road accidents over the long weekend, the traffic division of Greek Police was out in force.
Stepped up police patrols and surveillance was in store for all of the national highway system, toll booth stations and provisional roadways, while a ban was in place for trucks weighing over 3.5 tons, from Saturday at 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and on Monday from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m.
