Athens 5 Best (Not Free) Things to Do
Today, I'm in Athens, Greece! And there is a lot to do here. Let's go take a look at some of the best attractions the city has to offer.
Obviously, going to only free attractions when you travel is a great way to save money. But you will be missing out on some truly amazing places. So sometimes, you do want to pay for cool attractions.
But you only want to pay for them if they're really cool. So let's take a look at some of my favorite spots in Athens, and how much visiting them is going to cost.
Ancient Agora
Let's start with the ancient Agora. This was the first place I visited in Athens and I've already done a dedicated blog post about it, but it makes the list as one of the best so I'm briefly mentioning it again. The Agora was the main marketplace for Athens and admission to the ruin includes the museum, which is really nice. Everyone who was anyone in Athens, from Socrates to Alexander the Great, came to the Agora.
I mean, not women. Obviously, they weren't really allowed here. But we are now and admission is about $23 per person. The Agora and museum is very lovely and there's a large temple here that's remarkably intact, so there are some great photo opps here.
National Archaeological Museum
The National Archaeological Museum is another attraction that I covered in its own blog, but that’s because this really is one of the best attractions in the city. Tickets are about $14 per person, which isn’t too terrible considering that you can look at the actual mask of Agamemnon once you’re inside, not to mention a whole lot of incredible ancient artifacts from all around Greece. The history here dates back to the earliest days of the Greek peninsula and the Greek islands.
It’s a gorgeous museum and very large, so you won’t have trouble spending a couple hours walking around here. There’s also a truly beautiful courtyard where there are Greek statues and beautiful trees and it’s just about as Greek as you can get, really. Greece is a culture that is famous for its art, so I highly recommend that you see the amazing artworks on display here.
Road to the Underworld
One of the places I was most excited about and one of the truly using historical sites in Greece is Karameikos. It’s somewhat set apart from all the big attractions around the city, closer to the areas of Greece where the locals live. There are fewer hotels out here and lots more affordable shopping, FYI, at least there is once you get off of Ermou Street, which leads to Karameikos.
This is the beginning of your journey to the Underworld. In Greek history, Karameikos was where you would come to study the Mysteries. Not much is known about this, even by today’s leading Greek scholars, because, well, it was all quite mysterious. The path to the Underworld is fraught with secrets. The journey would begin here, at Karameikos, and lead you up the coastline to another Greek city many miles away.
It’s really very fascinating, and you can learn more about it at the truly beautiful museum that’s on site. Admission to the museum is free with your admission to the site, and it’s well worth it. The museum is small but extremely well designed and beautiful.
This was one of my favorite places in Athens and it had a lot of meaning for me. I really do recommend it. But be sure to bring sun protection because there aren’t a lot of trees around and it’s a bright, sunny area.
Admission to Karameikos is about $9 per person, which is really reasonable.
The Parthenon
Nothing in Athens will ever be more famous or more visited than, of course, the Acropolis and the Parthenon. They’re a package deal because if you go up on the Acropolis, you’re going to see the Parthenon. Visiting the set will cost you around $42, which yes is quite high.
However, there are ways to see it for free and I encourage you to watch my budget video because I break it all down there. Either way, obviously you should visit the Parthenon when you’re in Athens. It’s one of the most famous buildings in the world. Definitely go up on the Acropolis because you’ll regret it if you don’t.
I would also suggest swinging through the museum at the bottom of the hill before you leave this famous site. The Acropolis Museum is one of the most visited and most beautiful museums on the entire planet, which is a pretty decent claim to fame. You can see many items from the Acropolis here, which means you’ll see breathtaking carvings and statues, pottery, murals, and really amazing stuff.
The Acropolis museum is a great experience and I do recommend it, even with ticket prices at over $23 per person.
Because I’m giving you ticket amounts in U.S. dollars and not in Euros, I can’t be more precise. The exchange rate between the Euro and the dollar fluctuates on a daily basis due to stuff like the global stock markets and the values of currency and many other economic issues that I do not fully understand and definitely cannot adequately explain, so I’m afraid all prices are approximate depending on what’s going on with the U.S. economy on any given day.
Greek Food
What won’t change, however, is that Greek food is always delicious.
There’s a ton of stuff to try here and Athens happens to be a great street food city. Sidewalk cafes, food vendors, little restaurants owned by generations of the same family for over a hundred years. Bakeries, coffee shops, you can find it all here and it’s absolutely fine if you don’t speak Greek and they don’t speak English. Point to what you want and Greek hospitality will take care of most of the rest.
It doesn’t matter what you’re eating, really. Be brave, and try things. You’ve got really good odds of finding something delicious because meal preparation and food is very important here. They use really old techniques and they’ve been working with these flavors for literally thousands of years, so they’ve pretty much figured out how to make some good tasting stuff. Look at what other people are eating. If it looks good, get that! Just embrace the food because it’s amazing.
They want to feed you here. They want you to spend money at their place, so they are going to work with you and welcome you and help you pick out whatever you want. It’s a great place, really, and the locals are typically extremely kind and welcoming. Unless you’re sick. That’s a topic for another post.
Being in Athens
But the food is absolutely delicious and honestly, in all seriousness, you could come to Greece just to eat food and shop and you're going to have the most amazing vacation. You can literally not go to a single museum or historical site and you’re still going to have an awesome time because the city is full of sunshine and color and life and beauty. There’s music everywhere, there’s art everywhere, there are ruins and ancient stuff literally on the street. Okay, it’s right on the street.
While I was in Athens, a whole brand-new historically ancient place had only recently been discovered and they were working on digging it up to find out what it was. Meanwhile, it was totally accessible and easy to walk around in more than one ancient area of the city for free and randomly, near the national gardens, there was another historic site where they were apparently diffing stuff up and you could look right down on into it from the street.
It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen, seriously. There are also some really amazing free attractions here. Syntagma Square is the heart of the city and it’s where you can see the Athens Changing of the Guard, which is a very interesting and important ceremony that has a lot of meaning behind it.
Changing of the Guard
The Changing of the Guard happens regularly in Athens, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is in front of the parliament building the square, which was once the royal palace. The Palace was built by King Otto in 1834 but due to several fires within the building, it was not suitable for royal living.
Today, the tomb of the soldier represents the Greek soldiers who died during the many wars that have come to Greece in the past. This is where you can see the changing of the guard every hour. Yes, it happens every hour on the hour.
However, you can only see the really big Changing of the Guard Ceremony on Sunday at 11 am. This is when the really huge crowds gather and you definitely need to show up super early. I got here early and literally couldn't see anything.
This is the only ceremony when the guards wear the historical costume, which is what makes it worth seeing. The ful. costume is really quite impressive and it's highly symbolic. The uniform is based on those worn by soldiers during the War of Independence against the Ottomans, waged in 1821. It is said that the skirt of the uniform has 400 folds, which represent the 400 years of oppression the Greeks endured while under Ottoman occupation. King Otto himself established this uniform and wore it during state associations and important appearances.
The uniform includes the Greek kilt, which requires almost 100 feet of fabric per skirt, two socks on each leg with leather belts that hold the socks and red leather shoes, which are traditional. Each shoe is quite heavy, weighing over 6 and a half pounds. That's more than 13 pounds of shoes. Talk about being a soldier.
The guards all carry shotguns, which are incredibly difficult to carry because they are heavy. It's definitely something to see and it's one of the many things you can see for free here. So it is very possible to be very budget friendly in Athens, but there are some really amazing paid attractions you definitely do not want to miss.
I suggest a mix of both free and paid attractions to get the most out of our trip. But whatever you do, have fun doing it. Try new things. And don't forget to look around and notice the beauty of Athens.
Comments