Advice needed, preferably by Friday. I’m going to Europe with my husband’s grandparents and like 30 of his relatives. We’ll be visiting 5 countries (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, and Croatia), and most of our time will be occupied by organized tours with the family.
However, during the day in Athens we’ll be free to do whatever we want between about 7am and 6pm. My husband and I would kind of like to make it our day to celebrate our 1 year wedding anniversary since we missed it while I was in Mexico this summer (yeah, sometimes I have to pinch myself.)
One option we have on this day is to do one of the organized cruise tours available in the cruise brochure (independent of the family), however it’s hard for me to judge the differing values of each tour option without knowing anything at all about Athens.
I imagine the Acropolis and the Parthenon would be important, but there is one tour that spends a lot of time in the National Archaeological Museum and I’m kind of crazy about museums.
So 11 hours in Athens. Do we take a tour or do we do it on our own? And most importantly, where do we go?
p.s. If you happen to also have good suggestions for a free day in Dubrovnik, Croatia or Venice, Italy, please don’t hesitate to mention. It’s only that the day in Athens feels the most important to me. I’m rather passionate about philosophy, you see. That so many great philosophers grew out of this civilization is incredible, so I want to learn as much as I can about history, culture and art there, while I can.
My wife and I honeymooned in Greece last year and had a great freestyle day in Athens. You’d probably see the exact same things on an organized tour, but we just hate being herded from place to place. We only speak English, but since the Olympics, most every sign and map is in both Greek and English so it was easy to find our way.
Basically we started early and toured the entire Acropolis plus the museum they have on site, then we walked down and over to the Agora and toured all through there including the museum they have on site. We decided to walk the several blocks from there to the national museum. We got a walking map of the downtown core from the hotel we were staying at so we had easy directions, and I would think they’re readily available at any shop or ticket booth near the Acropolis. This gave us a nice snapshot of the regular citylife. We found a huge fresh food marketplace on one of the streets we took and wandered through there. We ate lunch at one of the gyro shops.
The National Museum is simply amazing. We spent most of the afternoon wandering around and snapping as many pictures as we could
We finally started walking back to our hotel along a different route that took us past the Parliament buildings. We found a spot along the sidewalk where the city had been digging to put in a subway line and stumbled on the old ruins of a Roman bath! They had it all windowed off and in the process of being excavated. Wow!
It’s easy to catch a taxi from the port right to any of the entrances to the Acropolis (negotiate the fee right up front with the cab driver (I think we paid like 30 Euro), and I think the subway can get you back and forth as well - though I don’t know the details). For our entrance fees we bought combo tickets for like 12 Euro apiece that got us into everything but the National Museum which was separately like 7 Euro.
The Plaka is an interesting place to wander around, but it seemed much livelier at night. I don’t think you’d have to feel like you missed anything if you didn’t get to it as most of the shops have the exact same touristy stuff. It’s right at the base of the Acropolis. Take the time to really look around from the top of the Acropolis as the view is incredible!
Thank you SO MUCH for your suggestions. Honestly we’d prefer to do it freestyle, I was just concerned getting around with transportation/communication was going to be a problem. It sounds like that really shouldn’t be a hindrance, and if you don’t mind we just might steal your itinerary!
My group included people who were Nuts About Old Stones (hi!), people who were Nuts About Shopping and people who were Nuts About Beaches.
When we got to Athens (we only had one day there), we made no attempt to hold the group of 77 together.
When myself and my friends (6 girls) got to the Acropolis, we hooked up with the dudes from MAFIA (11) who, having longer legs than us, had arrived faster and were negotiating with a Spanish-speaking guide. The group that guide finally took was 40 heads of Spanish sheep
The other 37 had to take an English-speaking guide, having being distracted by the shops along the path…
You got good advice from Maera for Athens.
In Dubrovnik, get out early and walk the city walls. That will keep you busy.
Take a ferry to Korcula or Lokrum.
If you get a chance to see Hvar, take it.
In Venice, get lost. I’m serious. You won’t stay lost, and IMHO it is the best way to experience that city.
