CuTiAngel

I'm afraid of dogs, yet I found the many stray dogs in Athens very mellow. Most of them lied around and barely moved. For those that walked, they didn't come around close to people. We came across so many that I started taking photos of the stray dogs and have a collection :)

In Istanbul, there was not a dog in sight. Cats, on the other hand, were plentiful.

Hope you won't cancel your trip due to the fear of stray dogs in Athens.

You're welcome. Ship tours have some advantages as far as convenience goes, however, looking back now close to a year from the trip, most of the memorable stuff were from our on-our-own tours. Enjoy your upcoming cruise! :)

Thanks for sharing your day with us. These types of posts make me more comfortable in doing the day on our own and not feeling pressured into doing a ship's tour. We have so many tours and busy itinerary that I would like to take the day in Athens to stroll and sit at a streetside cafe. The Ho/Ho bus sounds like a great idea. :)

From my research last year, people said the 4 Euro all day ticket could be purchased at the kiosks you see all over town. I didn't end up buying one at the kiosk so someone else may want to confirm this.

I was wondering the same thing! Does anyone know the answer where you can buy the 4 E ticket before boarding the bus? Thanks!

Yes, if you take the metro to Akropoli. Right after you exit the metro station and before the climb up the hill, there will be a small ticket booth and a small gate. The line was <5 minutes for us when the main gate line was close to a hour.

I passed by that small ticket booth at the start of the hill out of the Akropoli metro station as well. That morning, there were only 2 people in line. Should have got the tickets there.

Do they have signs in English st subway stations?

Yes. Signs are bilingual in both English and Greek. The subway was very simple to use, compared to many other major cities.

Thanks for sharing the photo, cruise pup. :)

Probably because of those stairs and the like, I ended up losing weight from this cruise! :D

We were in Athens the day after their elections last week and you would have never known it (except for the media camped out at the hotels lining Syntagma Square).

lovestx, glad to hear that you enjoyed Athens very much! Lucky to you that nothing happened to you for going there the day after the election. It could have gone any way, you know...

Yes, you did a great job of explaining using the metro to get to Athens/and the other directions as well. Loved the pics.

 

I had researched taking the HOHO bus. The price is 22 euros.

 

How long did it take on the metro to get to where you got off in Athens?

Thank you, captainsail. Which HOHO bus are you using? I see City Sightseeing has one for a few Euros less than that and looks pretty good.

The metro ride for me was about 20min + 3min transfer + 5min to the Akropolis station.

Thanks, that was great.

 

One addition, if you don't want to walk from the ship to the Metro station, you can take a bus. When you get up to the street, cross over and buy the ticket from the kiosk. The Metro ticket is also good for the bus. Buses 843 and 859 go to the Metro station.

I suggested that to my husband at first, but he got intimidated by all the kiosk guys we passed by and decided to walk. The strange thing was, I kept an eye out for all the buses that passed by, and didn't see one with either bus number. (Not to scare off those who plan to take the bus. Maybe we ventured out too far...)

Thanks for all of the helpful info. Can you tell me how long it took to get from Monastiraki back to the ship?

You can use this website: http://www.isap.gr/eng/index.asp

Simply choose the stations you want.

The walk from the Piraeus station to the ship, for example, Terminal A, was about 20 minutes.

Great info! Thank you! One question. Are the names of the metro stations (in the stations) listed in Greek and the English translation or just Greek? Wondering how easy it was to navigate.

The names are listed in both Greek and English.

The only tricky one I came across was the Monastiraki station, which could also be spelled as Monastirion. I was using the route map at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Athens_metro_2007.png. More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastiraki_station.

If you're really worried, just compare your route map with the one posted on the wall, such as the one on top of the stairs in the first photo of this thread.

Ermou Street is basically pedestrian only and lined with non-souvenir style stores. I was amazed how many shoe stores there were and it was tempting. At the end of the street, we saw the Parliament building and turned around to Monastiraki Square to take the Metro Green L1 straight to Pireaus. Back in Pireaus, we followed the water and went back to ship terminal.

With the whole mishap about finding the Metro in the morning, we ended up skipping the National Archaeological Museum. One major reason was that we got put off a bit by the amount of graffiti we came across, and I did some negative reading on the neighbor around the museum. We felt like we already saw what we came to see, and was happy to call it a day.

It’s said that Greece

was in the middle of the political turmoil but we did not encounter or witness any riot or anything different from normal life.

Hope you enjoy reading the post! After I’m done with all the port DIY posts, I will put up the ship review with the links to these posts.

(If anyone who can tell me an easy way how to make the images a bit smaller, I'd appreciate it. So far I'm just typing in the URL of the image in the "Insert Image" field.)

Our next stop was the Ancient Agora. We followed the exit sign and walked downhill, then we turned right. Not knowing exactly where it would lead us, I followed my gut feeling as it was the general direction to the Agora. There were more roads to go downhill. And the bottom of the hill, there was a gate, which happened to be the other entrance of the Agora.

Up the mountain was the Acropolis, the gate you see is the entrance. There was a ticket booth asking to see your combo ticket for entry.

We looked up the photos from Rick Steve’s app, and realized we were at the sight close to the end of the audio tour. Instead of walking all the way to the front and coming back, we decided to just jump to the tracks as we got to it. (It was not easy.)

The museum inside the Ancient Agora. It houses free restrooms, in which I had trouble using the sink to wash my hands. I guess because it was my first visit to a European restroom, I did not know you use a foot pedal to get water to come out.

We exited the Agora and wanted to get to the famous kebab street for lunch. To get there, we made a right, passing the touristy “fine dining” restaurants and souvenir stores, then we saw Monastiraki Square and the Metro station.

Monastiraki Square. The kebab street is to the right of this stoned structure.

This side street is Mitropoloeos, where we found the restaurant Thanasis about 2nd on our right.

After a morning of ruins, we wanted to sit down. If you’re sensitive to 2nd hand smoke, I advise you to sit inside. I wish I thought of that. We got two cokes, one Thanasis Kebab plate and one pork souvlaki plate to share. The portion was great!

Thanasis Kebab was what everyone was ordering and indeed was very tasty!

If you do not plan to sit down, you could get the souvlaki wrap for to-go. We saw patrons get that one after another. I’m sure it’s much cheaper too.

I wanted to check out the modern area of Athens, so we walked up and down the nearby Ermou Street.

I’d like to share with you all what we did during our time in Athens for the Grand Mediterranean cruise in May. Our ship docked in Piraeus and we took the Metro to visit the Acropolis and Ancient Agora. Then we walked along Ermou Street and then take the Metro back to the port city.

Our ship (Ruby Princess) docked in Terminal A and we took their free shuttle to Terminal B. According to my research, if we were to walk along the water with it to our left for 20 minutes, we would see the Metro station. We got impatient and thought we got lost, so went inside a CitiBank to ask for directions. Unluckily, we got some really bad directions, which was not consistent with what CC folks had advised. The next thing we knew, we were in a very sketchy area. It just didn’t seem right. We could see the Metro train tracks but where was the station? I asked an older man who walked by and he was extremely nice but didn’t speak a word of English. With hand gestures and simple words like “Athina” and “Ominia”, he helped us find our way. There was another man walked by, offering to show us the Metro station and the older man gave us a facial expression implying that we should not follow him. We appreciated it very much. So, the lesson learnt was: follow CC folks’ recommendations and invest in a good walking map with street names and hopefully landmarks in cartoons. I found Google maps not good enough.

So, if you follow the water on your left, you would see the big Metro station. There is an overpass/bridge with escalators and elevators if you are on the other side of the street.

We bought the 4 Euro all day ticket in the window, and went on the train. Don’t forget to validate your ticket on the platform prior to getting on! The labeling of the train was not good at all. Many tourists were just taking a leap of faith. However, it is a Metro terminal and looks like only one train goes there. We did not worry too much. It was a first for my husband to use public transportation in a country neither of us had been to, so I reassured him we were on the right train by pointing out each station as we got there.

To go to Acropolis from Piraeus, we took Metro Green Line 1, from Piraeus to Ominia, and looked for the platform for Red Line 2 to transfer to Akropoli, toward the direction of Aghios Dimitrios. At the station of Akropoli, there were a lot of stairs involved to go up. I joked, “Do I have to climb all these stairs already before going up the Acropolis? Is this like a preview?” At the station, there were historic artifacts of Greece displayed. Out of the station, we walked up to the main road and turned left to walk up the hill to look for the entrance to the Acropolis.

We first passed by a ticket booth to our right, but since we are going to use the Rick Steve’s audio walking tour and it starts at a different location, we continued on to find the other entrance. It’d have been a good idea to buy your ticket there as the ticket line was much shorter than the one at the other entrance uphill.

As you walk uphill, you could see the Acropolis on your right. Turn right and walk up, then you’d see some more stairs. You would pass by a public restroom to your right, and in the front to your left would be the other ticket booth (in yellow) and the tiny gift shop.

At the entrance gate, there were huge crowds of tour groups standing, waiting around. We walked around them and entered the site. Just a little bit uphill, the next thing you know, you’re already up here:

And walking up a bit more, you’re at the Parthenon.

Because we lost some time in Piraeus, we ended up visiting the Acropolis with the ship tour groups. It was nice to see some out of the way steps and stones to sit on to catch our breath.

Tip: the other side of the Parthenon way less crowded and a better location to take your photo with it.

Tip: looking down to the city from up here give you a good sense of direction which way to go next on your DIY journey.

A hot bowl of ramen noodles sounds about right.