ATHENS – With tourist travel into the country picking up during the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign visitors are joining locals in trying to find some way to stay cool in Greece during a week-long heat wave that has seen temperatures still hitting 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit) in some places July 1.

That led to the closing of the Acropolis because it's too hot to up up there with the sun cooking the famous rocks, people flocking to beaches – many of them public beaches where people have to pay because private clubs have taken them over.

With virtually no municipal swimming pools in the Greek capital, children who can't get to the beaches are left to simmer at home because even playgrounds and parks are just too hot to use.

“(I have got)the sea, swimming, the umbrella, I am just fine,” said Vili, a 60-year-old business owner, sitting under the shade on a beach near the Greek capital where a high concentration of north African dust turned the sky gray reported Reuters.

The Acropolis, Greece’s most famous ancient monument housing the 5th century BC Parthenon temple that attracts thousands of visitors a day in peak periods, was closed from 1-5 p.m. as a precaution, the report said.

“We visited the Acropolis today and it was very hot, but where we are living it’s raining all the time so we are happy with the heat,” 21-year-old French tourist Auriane Campart told the news agency.

But even being at the beach can be dangerous because of the temperatures and sun and with the sea waters far warmer than oceans such as the Atlantic, and the heat wave is raising the worry about a frequent summer problem of wild fires.