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The enormous and rapid population increase and attendant industrial development that characterized the postwar period had a disastrous effect on the environment of Athens. With a third of the Greek population, half the country's industry and over half of its cars crammed into Greater Athens, the capital has found itself with one of the world's worst pollution problems. A noxious brown cloud, the néfos , trapped by the circle of mountains and aerial inversion layers, can frequently be seen hovering over the city. Despite what your burning eyes and throat may tell you, some improvement in the situation has been registered in recent decades, though not in the critical pollutant, nitrogen dioxide. Moreover, the level of pollution still aggravates acute respiratory diseases and arguably contributed to the high death toll in the freak heatwaves or káfsones during the summers of 1987 and 1988. Alarmingly, the néfos is also gnawing away at the very fabric of the ancient city, including the Parthenon marbles. As sulphur dioxide settles on the columns and statuary, it becomes a friable coating of calcium sulphate, which is washed off by the winter rains, taking a thin layer of stone with it.

Most anti-pollution measures up until now have been aimed at restricting the use of private cars . Successive governments have experimented with limiting weekday use of vehicles in a central restricted zone, stipulating alternate days for odd- and even-numbered numberplates, but the government's efforts have been undermined by the fact that most shops, offices and businesses persist in closing for a three-hour summer siesta - making for four rush hours a day and double the amount of pollution and traffic problems. At least fuller integration into the EU and concomitant lowering of the once crippling import duties on private cars means that Athenians can now upgrade their vehicles more regularly, and those that use lead-free petrol are now cheaper and thus far more common.

At last, however, more far-reaching measures are being taken to help the city's public transport system rise to the challenge: the new airport at Spáta is open and, back in the heart of the city, virtually every landmark square has been excavated for the expansion of the metro system. The three-line metro will be complemented by a circular tram system downtown and the operation of passenger ferries between the coastal suburbs and metro stations at Pireás and Fáliro.

Furthermore, all electricity, most heating and some cooking is now fuelled by copious supplies of Russian natural gas, installed (by pipeline) in Athens in 1997. With air inversion layers prompting pollution alerts in both summer and winter, there is still a long way to go, but these policies do at least offer a ray of hope