No cafes, no tourists: Virus empties streets of old Athens

It's been a while since visitors to Greece sought out souvenirs in Athens' oldest neighborhood.

The winding streets of Plaka, laid out long before the city imported a grid system, are lined with closed stores behind aluminum shutters. The coronavirus pandemic has kept tourists away from the historic city center that forms a semi-circle around the Acropolis, and the area remained unusually devoid of pedestrians and motorists before Christmas.

In their absence, ancient monuments are a little easier to make out from a distance, fewer horns are sounding in traffic and homeless cats parked in front of cafes are a little less aloof.

Greece so far has imposed two nationwide lockdowns since the start of the pandemic. The first, in the spring, kept the country's infection rates low. Authorities ordered the second in response to a rapid post-summer rise in reported cases...