Athens launches Cool Routes pilot to map cooler walking paths

The city of Athens has started a pilot programme called “Cool Routes” that helps pedestrians find cooler routes during heat‑wave days. Participants can mark and share locations offering shade, breezes, water sources, public fountains or short‑stop spots, which appear on a public map as “Cool Pins”. The initiative relies on citizen reports submitted via social media using the #CoolRoutes hashtag.

The first phase was built with volunteers from Greenpeace, WWF Greece, Beak‑On and HouseHub and operates under the auspices of the Athens municipality and the METEO unit of the National Observatory of Athens, with support from the European Climate Foundation. Information gathered will be used to expand the service for the summer of 2027 after an initial rollout this year.

Cool Routes aims to turn lived experience of heat into a shared resource, encouraging collective adaptation to increasingly frequent heatwaves in Greece.