The sidewalks in Athens are generally narrow...

...sometimes too narrow (this one is in Kypselis street, the main shopping street of Kypseli, a densely inhabited district near the centre of Athens)

This is how it looks a typical sidewalk in most residential areas in Athens

But even if it happens to have any satisfactory width, sidewalks are usually blocked by cars and motorcycles...

...sometimes completely blocked (here outside a metro station in Syngrou avenue)

Fences (instead of bollards) are erected on the curb of the sidewalks, allegedly to protect pedestrians from cars. But there is a suspicion that they consume valuable pedestrian space and bother other city activities (e.g. disembarkation from taxis, or shop catering), rather for the ease of motorised traffic, than for the benefit of pedestrians

Indeed, these fences do not bother motorcycles at all...

.. and many times not even cars...

...while almost always give pedestrians a hard time.

The administration feels O.K. with the situation. This sidewalk is marked as "enhanced" by them, although the greek specifications for the handicapped people require at least 2,05 metres width of the sidewalk. It is in Kaningos square, a square in the very centre of Athens, at that time turned into an underground garage.

This is the fate of one of the few freshly widened sidewalks (Kolokotroni street a few metres from Syntagma square in the centre of Athens). Nobody in the administration seems to be bothered.

Very often pedestrians are forced to move on the pavement (this is a "sidewalk" opposite to Athens cathedral in Mitropoleos street), either because of  parked cars and motorcycles...

...or because of  some other reason (Panepistimiou street in the centre of Athens). There, some bright minds are ready to ticket them. For safety reasons of course, for their own good!