ATHENS - Travel Guide
We caught an overnight bus from Sofia to Athens and arrived in Athens at 6am in the morning!
We booked our accommodation in Monastiraki which is pretty central and 15-20 walking distance to the bus station. Little we know 15 min will separate you from a very weird neighbourhood to Acropolis :( Before we hopped out of the bus we saw so many homeless people and it was still dark so I (Sezgi) freaked out straight away.
When we hopped out, grabbed our luggages and started to walk to our accommodation. To be honest it wasn’t a very pleasant walk! We saw so many used needles on the ground and so many so so many graffiti on the walls. Literally everywhere!
Since we arrived super early and check in is 2pm we dropped our bags to the hostel and waited little bit for shops to open. When sun comes out and shops started to open the city came alive and made us feel much safer :) We managed to find breakfast and coffee close to hotel and when we got full World was a better place:)
Below our notes, tips and ideas for Athens. It is not our favourite city but we missed being in Athens I think!
How to get to Athens?
We caught a bus to Athens from Sofia and it was so affordable and comfortable. We searched and decided to use bus company called Tourist Service and turned out it was a great choice. Tickets cost 25 Euro pp from Sofia to Athens. Bus stopped multiple times for toilet break, had Wifi and arrived on time! It was a win :)
Accommodation in Athens
We stayed at Safestay Athens for 2 nights. Staying 3 days in Athens was just enough for us and allowed us to see so many places!
Safestay is a hostel but gives you option to choose double room with private bathroom which we chose to stay. Our room costs around 50 Euro per night! Was it perfect? No! It was a very good location, clean and safe but internet does not work in the room and when you have a shower the entire bathroom gets wet lol! But they were so helpful with everything they even printed our ferry tickets to the island. So 50 Euro per night is a great price actually!
What to eat in Athens?
If you are a budget traveler like us you have one answer for this question : Gyros!
It is 3 - 3.50 Euro and fills you up pretty good! Athens is surprisingly affordable actually. You can choose to eat in fancy places or somewhere in the middle for 15 Euro each meal or go for gold and 3 Euro Gyros.
Around the Monastiraki Square there are so many touristic places (especially where you can see Acropolis) where you will be overcharged for a very bad service but walk down little bit and get a gyro or pastry for less than 5 Euro. Drinks are also pretty cheap in the convenience stores. Long story short you can have breakfast lunch dinner for around 5Euro each meal :)
What to do in Athens?
When anyone talks about Athens, the first thing people will remember is Acropolis! Does it worth the hype? NO! Maybe because we have seen so many Roman ruins before, maybe lack of information on the site without a guide doesn’t help or the crowd and heat combination made us overwhelmed not sure but we found it so overrated! We were there right on the opening time and this was the crowd on top!
You can get different type of tickets for the historical sites around this area. One of them is a group ticket to enter 7-8 different sites and our advice do not buy that ticket! They put Acropolis and one of the good sides and grouped it with the sites noone wants to go and it costs 30Euro pp! We thought Acropolis Museum was included as well but sadly learnt on the door that wasn’t :( Of course depends on what you want to see but if you want to see the museum buying tickets separately for each site is cheaper.
We recommend Acropolis (with an audio guide), Acropolis Museum and Ancient Agora to visit.
Also trains are so easy to use in Athens! They do not have so many lines but finding your way to the airport or to the ports for island ferries is so easy.
Things you should be careful in Athens…
Unfortunately as other big cities we have witnessed some scammers during our stay.
First elderly gentlemen and ladies try to sell you a train ticket while you are about to buy at the train stations. They pick up the tickets from the bin (used tickets) and tell you they have a ticket for you to buy cheaper. Chris notices straight away and we purchased ours from the ticket machines.
Second scam is in the restaurants! You sit down and they bring bread straight to the table before you order anything. In Turkey it is always complimentary and we thought in Greece it is the same. But while paying the bill realised they charged us for 2 slices old bread! 2 Euro is not so much but why would I want to pay for something I didn’t even want in the beginning :(
Last pick pocketing! We thankfully didn’t lose anything to pick pocketers but have been warned many times!
Hopefully our tips and ideas will give you an idea for your trip.
Love,
Chris and Sezgi.