The Metro of Athens Greece

 The first phase of the Athens Metro was completed and released into circulation in January 2000. While being built it was one of the largest construction projects in Europe and the same time a project whose completion encountered immense difficulties due to the peculiarities of the subsoil of Attica on one hand and on the other and due to the particular care required during work which constantly came across archeological finds. For example, it is worth noting that the archeological excavations carried out during work on the Metro, which covered a total area of 69,000m2 constituted the largest, single archeological excavation site which was ever worked on in Greece. The Metro consists of two main lines (named 2 & 3 as well as Line 1, which is considered to be the Athens - Piraeus Electric Railway which operates in a complementary manner in relation to the Metro network). Line 2 operates between Sepolia and Dafni while Line 3 operates between Ethniki Amyna and Syndagma. This section between Syndagma and Monastiraki will soon be released into circulation. There are plans to extend the Metro to Peristeri and Aegaleo in the west, to Stavros and Paradisos, in the Prefecture of Marousi in the north and Ilioupoli in the south while in the long-term there are plans to extend the network as far as
Glyfada.

 When in full operation into Metro lines serve 140 million passengers per year. During peak hours the trains call at each station every 3 minutes while at other times every 5-10 minutes. The Metro has significantly decongested the center of Athens and reduced distances to a minimum, distances which before its construction required much longer periods of time in order to cover them.

The Metro is truly a diamond in the crown of Athens and for the entire country, something which can be easily understood by anyone visiting any station of the network. The overall image given by the stations is a fine balance between luxury and minimalism, with traditional building materials, such as marble, dominating the stations everywhere. However, what the impresses the visitor most is the visual arts which have been installed in the stations, many of which host significant works by contemporary Greek artists, while the stations at Syndagma and the Acropolis are in effect well-organized archeological museums. For this reason, any visitor to Athens would be omitting something vital if he failed to take a tour of the Metro network stations.

 
write by http://old.mfa.gr/english/greece/today/transportation/metro.html