Art News

Debt crisis strikes Greek monuments, closed monuments or curtailed trips irk tourists

ATHENS (REUTERS).- At the end of a sunny day on the Acropolis last month, Svein Davoy gazed awe-struck at the columns of the Parthenon gleaming in the twilight. “It’s marvelous. This is where Western civilization began. I will certainly tell my friends to come to Greece and see all this,” enthused Davoy, 63, an economist from Norway. Davoy was luckier than he realized. The union representing security guards at museums and archaeological sites very nearly shut down all Greece’s monuments in November in a dispute with the culture and tourism ministry over overtime pay. Greece’s debt crisis has badly hurt tourism — forcing visitors to clamber over fences to see closed monuments or curtail trips to avoid strikes and unrest, endangering new cultural initiatives and even raising concerns about the security around some of the country’s most precious archaeological sites. Culture and Tourism Minister Pavlos Yeroulanos has said the