You will notice something different the next time you walk down Ermou, the main shopping street in central Athens.
According to the Municipality of Athens, the clean up carried out by special teams, was necessary to eliminate the graffiti that covered dozens of surfaces of historic buildings and the walls/shutters of shops.
The workers cleaned a total area of almost 1,700 square meters, from Syntagma to Agion Asomaton.
"New breath for the buildings," Athens mayor Kostas Bakogiannis said, adding that the streets of Athens are not 'decorated', but clean.
The effort was particularly arduous as the graffiti had been on the surface for a long period of time.
To remove the paint from marble and stone surfaces, cleaning crews used pressure washing equipment and 300 litres of solvent.
Workers also applied 100 litres of anti-graffiti coating.