Syntagma Square Occupied by Taxis

Yesterday, at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, coming from Syntagma station to get 040 bus, I saw this sight.



Taxi drivers on strike (48 hours, 2 and 3 March) were occupying the Syntagma Square. It is not obvious from the photos, but all the taxis were parked and not moving at all.

Evidently drivers understood that their strike does not bother ordinary people so much and decided to give more annoyance.



When I passed here, only several men were arguing (with a little bit of bush and thrust), but, later I saw on tv that the demonstration got more violent.



Obviously the buses could not arrive at or leave Syntagma. I had to go back to Metro station to go home. I had just bought 6 litres of olive oil from the Exposition of Laconian Products at Syntagma Station(until this Friday) and it was very inconvenient.

Taxi drivers have right to strike as everyone else, but closing Syntagma Square is ILLIGAL, as the square is public possession.

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Further strikes of public (and maybe private) workers are planned on 8th and 16th March. Watch out.

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And in the streets of Athens and Piraeus, the neratzi (bitter orange) trees have started to bloom.



It smells heavenly!

Taxi Strikes Again

Greek taxis planning again strike, this time 48 hours from 2 to 3 March.

The taxi drivers are against the proposed reform by which it gets difficult to declare lower income and evade tax.

It might sounds incredible, but there are so many tax-evading self-employees (doctors, lawers, etc etc) and employees, taxi drivers are upset to be picked up as a target.

It is however doubtful how effective is the strike, as it seems many Athenians are happy to find roads free of taxis and to be able to avoid traffic jam. The Athenian public transport system is pretty good and, althought it takes more time than taxi, you can arrive almost anywhere you want.

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By the way, I went to Delphi this Saturday.

Until recently the site was partially closed and the visitors could not enter after the Temple of Apollo, but this time I found that it was again open up to the Theatre. The road to the Stadium, however, is still closed.

If you are planning the visit to Delphi, take it into consideration.

Taxi Fare from Piraeus Port

[I published this article first in April 2009 and updated it in May 2009 with new tariff. This is the second update]


In the port of Piraeus, I found this notice board about taxi fares from the Port to Athens and elsewhere. I publish this, as it can be some use for those who want to travel to and from the port by taxi. I know you cannot read it on this photo, but if you click it, you can see the enlarged version.



And following is the previous fare table. We can see that the tariff is up about 30%.



This 'indicative' fare includes flat rate, toll, and luggage supplement. In each row, the upper price is for daytime and the lower one is for the night (0:00-5:00).

This is correct at the moment of writing, but it will go up again in May 2010. (I read on newspaper that this planned hike was scrapped considering the current economic situation in Greece).

(Not everyone wants to show the tariff!)