A 62-year-old woman fitted with artificial knees two years ago is to walk 600 kilometers from Athens to Thessaloniki to prove that fitness can be regained despite illness.

Cleopatra Markopoulou is this Sunday to set off from the Acropolis and wind her way northward, stopping off every evening at towns along the way, before her estimated arrival in Thessaloniki 28 days later, on October 19.

Markopoulou, a keen walker who developed knee problems after the birth of her third child, is being advised on her undertaking by the doctor who performed her knee operation in Johannesburg, where she lived before returning to Athens. In training for the walk, she has been walking 25 kilometers a day on her treadmill and another 15 kilometers in the evening with her husband.

“My doctor said these days you can walk to the moon,” she said.