A heat wave baking Greece is likely to become the longest the country has ever recorded, experts say, as the country battles wildfires and restricts access to its popular tourist sites.
Visiting hours for the Acropolis and other archaeological sites have been revised with temperatures soaring. Staff at some sites are on strike to protests working conditions.
"We will probably go through 15 to 16 days of a heat wave, which has never happened before in our country," the Director of Research at the National Observatory of Athens Kostas Lagouvardos told CNN.
He told CNN that the streak could go beyond those days, but at the moment "it's hard to predict."
The longest continuous heatwave that Greece has faced was 12 days long, back in July 1987, Lagouvardos said.
Lagouvardos said temperatures in Athens this summer could possibly break the city's all-time record, which was set in June 2007, when Athens registered 44.8 degrees Celsius (112.64 degrees Fahrenheit).
The authorities have been battling wildfires in several areas, including the island of Rhodes where Reuters said hundreds have been forced to evacuate.
Large parts of the northern hemisphere have seen fierce temperatures, with Europe seeing dramatic shifts from one form of extreme weather to another.
Italy's northern region of Veneto was pounded with tennis-ball sized hail overnight on Wednesday, injuring at least 110 people. Emergency services responded to more than 500 calls for help due to damage to property and personal injuries, the Veneto regional civil protection said.
The country also experienced record-breaking heat, with capital Rome hitting a new high temperature of 41 degrees Celsius on Tuesday. Earlier in the year the country was hit by devastating floods.
In the Balkans, severe thunderstorms storms claimed several lives after hitting on Wednesday, CNN's affiliate N1 reported Thursday.
Scientists are warning that the extreme weather may only be a preview of what's to come as the planet warms.
"The weather extremes will continue to become more intense and our weather patterns could change in ways we yet can't predict," said Peter Stott, a science fellow in climate attribution at the UK Met Office told CNN.
