Essential Information

Airport
Eleftherios Venizelos is at Spata, 33 kilometres (20 miles) southeast of Athens. A taxi in to the city costs €20-30 depending on arrival time and the number of suitcases. The airport bus to Syntagma takes just under an hour and costs €2.90. The Metro goes to the centre and costs €8. The Metro journey to Syntagma takes 27 minutes, and the journey to Piraeus takes 60 minutes. Phone: +30 2103530000
Internet: www.aia.gr

Local Public Transport
The new Metro stations are well worth seeing, and are kept spotlessly clean. There is a tram from the centre to Glyfada. Buses and trolley buses run until midnight. The airport bus ticket is valid on other public transport services for 24 hours. There are various travel cards on sale at ticket offices. Ferries out to the islands leave from the harbour in Pireus or from Rafina. Boat timetables at www.gtp.gr
Taxi There are lots of taxis, but here it is normal to share a taxi, so don’t be surprised if the driver picks up additional passengers along the road who are going in the same direction. The drivers have taximeters and fixed prices.
Post
Stamps can be bought in most tobacconists and kiosks selling postcards.
Pharmacy
Doctor on duty, pharmacy 1434
Dentist
Doctor on duty, pharmacy 1434
Telephone
Country code: +30 for Greece, Area code: 210 for Athens
Electricity
220 volts

Cafes in Athens

Athenians love to sit in a kafeneion, sipping Greek coffee or frappé, iced coffee. But these days the new fashion for caffe latte and cappucino is gaining ground.

Plaka
Around the central square in Plaka there are lots of similar cafes where you can have a frappé, read a newspaper and watch the world go by. Address: Kydathineon


Caffé Peros
Kolonaki Square’s central point, where sooner or later everyone you know will pass by. A place for ladies and gentlemen partaking of coffee under a canopy. Open all year round. Address: Plateia Kolonakiou, Kolonaki


Da Capo
If Peros is posh, Da Capo is trendy. Here the younger smart set gather after shopping, or before going on somewhere else in the evening. Address: Plateia Kolonakiou, Kolonaki

Shopping in Athens

The best shopping streets are Voukourestiou, Patriarhou Ioakim, Skoufa, Tsakalof, Kanari and the side streets around Kolonaki. There are many designer clothes, expensive boutiques and jewellers. Try for example Emporiko Centro, an exclusive galleria of several floors with gold, ties, clocks and watches, glasses and a Gucci boutique. In this area is also Old Athens, a shoe and handbag shop with a 1960s flavour, when ladies wore gloves and pearl necklaces à la Jackie O and Maria Callas. The shop owner was a fashion editor before setting up on his own, putting Greek handmade accessories on the map. Ermou has become the main street for shoes, and on Mitropoleos, from Syntagma down to Monastiraki, you can also buy handbags and shoes. Here too is the covered market hall which occupies a whole block, with the fish market in the middle. All around are butchers and spice shops, and around the market are several simple but good places to eat. Like onion soup in the Paris markets, here you eat patsa or tripe soup to ease the effects of ouzo.

Clubs and Nightlife

Bars & Nightlife - Athens

Athens is not really a city of fine bars – for that you should visit some of the international hotels. On the other hand, there are lots of combined bars/cafés that serve both. Often combined with some food, as it is the Greek custom to eat a little snack to go with drinks. In the summer, much of the night life moves out to Glyfada and Vouliagmenis along the coast.

Grand Bretagne
This bar in the classic old hotel has a genuine turn-of-the-century, well-to-do feel, and has had a facelift, making it one of the top meeting places in Athens. Address: Syntagma Square


De Lux
Lies just below the new Acropolis Museum, and is popular with the media crowd. Also serves food. Address: Falirou 15, Makroyanni


City
The place to mingle under the trees in this pleasantly shady little side street, where one bar merges into the next. Bar Mousa and the fine Azul restaurant are wall to wall. Address: Charitos 43, Kolonaki


Psyrri, Gazi, Rouf
The area beyond Monastiraki has livened up with many restaurants, bars and clubs going on well into the night. Look out for Astron, Taki 3 or Bee, Address: Miaouli & Themidos


Exarchia
The area around the Technical University has got rock clubs such as An, Solomon 13 and Rodon, Marni 24.

Do and See

Do & See - Athens

National Archaeological Museum
Here you will find Ancient Greece’s most spectacular pieces. One room contains Schliemann’s finds from Mycenae. The famous frescoes from Santorini are on display. There is also a fine collection of idols from the Cyclades, and ceramics. Address: Patission 44, Museio
Subway: Victoria
Phone: +30 210 8217717, 8217724


The Acropolis and its surroundings
The Parthenon, the temple of Athena, is the major attraction. There is also the Erechteion, whose columns are statues of the female Caryatids, though the original statues have been replaced by copies because of air pollution. On the southern slopes of the Acropolis lies the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, a Roman theatre with room for as many as 5,000 spectators. It is used during the annual Athens Festival for world-class ballet and music performances. The Dionysus Theatre lies beside Herodes Atticus, and almost all the tragedies and comedies of Ancient Greece were written for this theatre. Subway: Acropolis


Agora
This was both a marketplace and a political centre. The Agora is dominated by the Stoa of Attalus and the Theseion, or Hephaisteion, dedicated to the god of metalworking and also to Theseus, one of the heroes of Greek mythology. Address: Monastiraki
Subway: Monastiraki


Benaki
A history museum with many objects from the Stone Age up to the War of Independence against the Turks. In the annexe there are often very interesting separate exhibitions. Address: 1 Koumbari St. & Vas. Sofias Ave.
Phone: +30 210 367 1000
Internet: www.benaki.gr

Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
Until 2006, it is being housed in temporary premises at the Megaron Mousikis Concert Hall, but will then move back to the former brewery FIX. Plenty of video art and experimental installations. Address: Vass. Sofias/Kokkali, Ambelokipi
Subway: Megaro Mousikis
Phone: + 30 210 - 9242111 - 2
Internet: www.emst.gr

Athens City

Of all Europe’s capitals, Athens is probably the one that has changed the most in recent years. But even though Athens has become a modern metropolis, it still retains a good deal of its old small town feel. Here antiquity meets the future, and the ancient monuments form a classical backdrop to a new and trendier Athens – and it is precisely these great contrasts that make the city such a fascinating place to explore.
Athens’ heyday was around 400 years before Christ – that’s when most of the classical monuments were built. During the Byzantine and Turkish eras, the city decayed into just an insignificant little village, only to become the capital of newly-liberated Greece in 1833. Ahead of the 2004 Olympics, almost the entire infrastructure was transformed, and the Metro, trams, new ring roads and viaducts have eased the pressure of the heavy traffic. Athens is still a rather messy and chaotic place – it wouldn’t be Athens otherwise – and despite all the improvements, still retains a great deal of its oriental charm. The whole coastal stretch from Piraeus to the old Hellenikon airport has been improved with new plantings, viaducts and paths for walking. The Plaka quarter is becoming more popular, and is on the way to catching up with Psyrri, Gazi and Rouf as regards restaurants. Discover the right places in the Anafiotika district, at the feet of the Acropolis, and you will find it still has a village feel in the midst of the city. In Exarchia, there is still a somewhat in-your-face anarchic atmosphere around the Technical University. Meanwhile, Kolonaki is becoming more and more chic.

Greece (Greek: Ελλάδα Elláda, IPA: [ɛˈlaða], or Ελλάς Ellás, [ɛˈlas]), officially the Hellenic Republic [Ελληνική Δημοκρατία (ɛliniˈkʲi ðimokraˈtia)], is a country in Southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula. It has borders with Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east and south of mainland Greece, while the Ionian Sea lies to the west. Both parts of the Eastern Mediterranean basin feature a vast number of islands.



Greece lies at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is heir to the heritages of ancient Greece, the Byzantine Empire, and nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule. Greece has a particularly long and eventful history and a cultural heritage that both shaped and has been shaped by cultures throughout the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe. It is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature, political science, major scientific and mathematic principles, and Western drama including both tragedy and comedy.

Modern Greece is a developed country, a member of the European Union since 1981, a member of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union since 2001, NATO since 1952, the OECD since 1961, the WEU since 1995, and ESA since 2005. Athens is the capital; Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Volos and Larissa are some of the country's other major cities.