How to get to Athens

By air

Flying is foremost the safest way to travel as well as the fastest. There are a few low-cost carriers that will fly you to Athens for a good price if you don’t value much service and seat space but you can get there with about every air carrier from most parts of the world.

Check and compare prices and timetables online but also ask your travel agent. They usually have pretty good deals on flights to Athens and you will be happily surprised when you get to the prize winning new Eleftherios Venizelos International Athens Airport in Spata.

 

By car

If you arrive by car from Corinth (to the southwest), the signs into Athens will direct you fairly clearly into Omonia Square, which you will enter from the west along Ayiou Konstandinou Street. In Omonia, signs should direct you on towards Syntagma Square and other points in central Athens but sometimes signs in Omonia disappear mysteriously. If you arrive from Thessaloniki (to the north), the signs pointing you into central Athens are few and far between.

 

By bus

There are two principal stations for KTEL, the national bus company. Terminal A, Kifissou Avenue 100, off the road out of Athens toward Corinth, handles buses to and from the Peloponnese and parts of Northern Greece. If you don't have much to carry, take public bus number 51 to the terminal. It leaves from the corner of Zinonos and Menandrou Streets, several blocks off Omonia Square; you can catch the same bus at the terminal for the trip into town.

Terminal B,  Liossion Street 260 (tel. 210 831 7096), handles buses to and from Central Greece (including Delphi, Thebes, Evia and Meteora) and some destinations to the north and east of Athens. Bus number 24, which stops at Amalias Avenue in front of the entrance to the National Gardens (a block south of Syntagma Square), will take you to and from the terminal

The 29, Mavrommataion Street terminal at Patission and Alexandras (metro station Victoria), a few hundred meters north of the Archaeological Museum, handles buses for most destinations in Attica.

By train

Trains from the south and west, including Eurail connections via Patras, arrive at the Peloponnese station (Stathmos Peloponnisou, tel. 210 513 1601), about 1,6km (a mile) northwest of Omonia Square. Trains from the north arrive at Larissa station (Stathmos Larissis, tel. 210 529 8837), just across the tracks from the Peloponnese Station. The Larissa station has both an exchange office, usually open daily from 08:00am to 09:15pm, and luggage storage, usually open from 06:30am to 09:00pm.

Trolley 1 runs from Larissa station to Omonia, Syntagma and Koukaki. The most central place from which to catch it is the stop in front of the Parliament Building in Syntagma Square. You can purchase train tickets just before your journey at the station at the Omonia Square ticket office,  Karolou Street 1 (tel. 210 524 0647); at  Filellinon Street 17, off Syntagma Square or at most travel agents. Information on timetables is available by dialing tel. 145 or 147.

By ferry-boat

Piraeus, the main harbor of Athens's main seaport, 11 kilometers (7 miles) southwest of central Athens, is a 15-minute metro ride from Monastiraki and Omonia squares. The subway runs from 5:00am to 02:00. The far-slower bus number 040 runs from Piraeus to central Athens (with a stop at  Filellinon Street, off Syntagma Square) every 25 minutes between 5:00am and 1:00am and hourly from 1:00am to 5:00am.

If you've landed at the port of Rafina (about an hour's bus ride east of Athens), you'll see a bus stop up the hill from the ferryboat pier. Inquire about the bus to Athens; it runs often and will return you within the hour to the Areos Park Terminal, Mavromateon Street 29, near the junction of Alexandras Avenue and Patission Street (about 35 minutes by trolley from Syntagma Square or 1 block from the Victoria Square metro stop). From the terminal, there are buses to Rafina every half hour.

If you intend staying in Athens for some days and you travel on to one of the splendid Greek Islands or you intend to make a tour of Greece, see our Travel Agents page. Have local specialists prepare your bookings and connections. You don't want anything to go wrong or get stranded!

  

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