President Obama tours Greek's ancient Acropolis before delivering speech later Wednesday on final overseas trip.

President Barack Obama toured Greece's most famous ancient monument, the Acropolis citadel, and was due to deliver a speech to the Greek people later Wednesday as he winds up the first leg of his final foreign tour as president and heads from Greece to Germany.
Obama entered the complex through the Propylaea, the monumental
gateway that serves as an entrance to the site, and walked along the Parthenon temple, which was dedicated to the goddess Athena, considered the patron god of the city of Athens. The U.S. president lingered at the base of the Parthenon, gazing up at the columns and glancing around at the panoramic view of Athens as he chatted with his guide, Eleni Banou of the Culture Ministry's antiquities division.
The 5th Century B.C. Parthenon temple is surrounded these days by scaffolding as part of maintenance works. The entire site was closed to the public for the day for Obama's visit, which has taken place amid draconian security measures that have also banned demonstrations in parts of Athens, and shut down roads and subway stations.
Greece's government has hailed Obama's visit — the first official visit of a sitting U.S. president since a 1999 trip here by Bill Clinton — as being of massive importance. It has pinned its hopes on him persuading some of the financially stricken country's more reluctant international creditors to grant debt relief, as well as pressuring other European countries to share more of the burden of the continent's refugee crisis.
Obama was receptive to Greece's woes and repeated his belief that debt relief is necessary. He also stressed Greece must continue implementing painful reforms it signed up to in return for successive international bailouts. It is questionable how much of this stance will also be adopted by his successor, Donald Trump, following the latter's election victory.
Speaking during a joint news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on the first day of his visit Tuesday, Obama explained Trump's victory as a reaction against economic uncertainty, suspicion of elites and a desire to reign in the excesses of globalization, and said world leaders should pay attention to their citizens' very real fears of inequality and economic dislocation.
"The more aggressively and effectively we deal with those issues, the less those fears may channel themselves into counterproductive approaches that can pit people against each other," Obama said.
Obama's words are being watched closely by world leaders who see parallels between Trump's election and the rise of far-right and populist movements in their own countries amid continued economic anxiety.