Highlights of Athens Review

[FManke]

So let me start by saying we enjoyed this tour very much. The star of this tour was the Acropolis. It was fantastic and worth the price of the tour on its own. BUT, if your idea of seeing "highlights" of Athens is getting out and exploring them, this is not the tour for you. Highlights were pointed out as we drove passed them on the bus to and from the Acropolis. Having bad knees, I was afraid the walk to the top of the Acropolis would be too much. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. After the Acropolis, we headed back into town for a short walking tour of the Plaka and independent time. Because of the terrible rush hour traffic, the 3hrs of independent time was cut to about 2hrs. We still had time to explore the Plaka, just as not as much as we had wanted. Like a lot of excursions that we have taken in the past, you spend a lot of time on the bus getting from one place to another. I guess it can't be helped that the port is 30min from downtown Athens and getting around Athens is like any other major world city of 3million people. Traffic is the same everywhere. 

If I had to do it again, I would have done the Acropolis on its own and just walked to the other sites I wanted. Things are pretty compact around the Acropolis and easy to walk to.

 

Happy Cruising!

[RafaellaCG]

I really recommend the hop on hop off busses, much cheaper and you can choose where you want your free time. 

Edit: Not RC, there are busses in the port you can buy tickets to.

[FManke]

5 hours ago, RafaellaCG said:

I really recommend the hop on hop off busses, much cheaper and you can choose where you want your free time. 

Next time!

[Jim the Titan]

On 10/23/2022 at 3:14 PM, RafaellaCG said:

I really recommend the hop on hop off busses, much cheaper and you can choose where you want your free time. 

Edit: Not RC, there are busses in the port you can buy tickets to.

Thanks for this. I find the ship excursions to be kinda pricy. Any recommendations for outside providers are highly appreciated! 

Thanks for the thread as well! Noteworthy!

[RafaellaCG]

There were two bus lines in port when we arrived, a blue bus and a red bus. We took the red one but I'm sure they're very similar. They went to the Acropolis where you could switch to a line around Athens or a line that goes to beaches (all included in the price, just to make sure you don't miss a stop and need to go all the way back to port). They give you earphones you can plug in to listen to explanations of what you're seeing and have free wifi (sometimes other gifts, like a free beer or appetizer coupon for a local establishment).

[DDaley]

We Ubered to the Acropolis from Piraeus, price 14€, took about 15 minutes and we were dropped at the base of the hill where the second, smaller entrance gate is located. I definitely recommend this mode of transportation! In Athens, Uber uses the available taxis so we were never waiting to get one, we caught them all over the city and to the airport for very affordable prices. 

We got there right as the gates open at 8am and beat a ton of people to the top, as we were coming down around 9am there were a lot more people and it was already so much hotter (we traveled in August).