Cold fails to stem Easter rush

The prospect of one of the coldest Easters in 30 years and rising prices do not seem to have had any negative impact on the traditional exodus of Athenians, spending the next few days in the countryside. According to figures released yesterday, some 118,000 passengers set sail from Piraeus between last Friday and Tuesday. This was a rise of some 7,000 over the same period last year.. The Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) has upped the number of carriages on its services by 20% and almost 1,000 KTEL intercity buses are expected to depart from Athens today and tomorrow. A number of Athenians have picked foreign destinations for their Easter vacation and about 3,000 flights are due to land or take off from Athens International Airport over the next week. However, the largest percentage of Athenians is expected to leave the city by car. As part of the special traffic measures for Easter, from today trucks will not be allowed onto national roads between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. An unusual cold snap is expected to spread across the country from today do not appear to have decreased the desire of Athenians to spend their Easter outside the capital. The temperature will range between 17 Celsius (62 Fahrenheit) and 22C (71F) on these days, making this Easter one of the coldest that has been recorded over the last three decades.