The metal sheets are coming down, at last

Most metro stations in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, are bustling with workers carrying out the final tasks as the countdown to the inauguration begins. Even Google Maps has adapted to the upcoming reality, now showing the stations' locations, making a future that once seemed unreachable feel close at hand. Residents watch the workers with a mix of curiosity and skepticism as they tackle challenges like installing glass ceilings on the previously bare metal entrances. It's hard for locals to believe that the 18 years of disruption are almost over. For Thessaloniki, since the era of the "Kouvelas Hole" (the first attempt at a metro station near the northern gate of the National Technical University, in the late 1980s), the metro has been a symbol of governmental inefficiency and, above all, a painful reminder of chronic neglect by central authorities in the capital...