katerina711

I found our itinerary for the 8 hour walking tour of Athens. Add one hour in the front and back ends for the trip from/to Piraeus Port for total of 10 hours.

7:00: Leave Piraeus port and drive to Athens.

8:00 am: Meet guide at the base of the Acropolis. Start our walk towards the top of the Acropolis rock. See Propylaea, Parthenon, Erechtheion (copies of the Caryatids in situ, at the Erechtheion). See the PanathenaicStadium, from a distance - the best possible view of the Stadium (totally out of our way).

9:30 am: Depart the top of the Acropolis & walkthrough the southern slopes of the rock, towards the Theater of Dionysos. Arrive & see the Theater of Dionysos.

10:00 am: Exit the archaeological site of the Acropolis, through the exit of the Theater. Pass by the New Acropolis Museum & continue, through the pedestrian Dionysios the Areopagite street, towards the Temple of Olympios Zeus, passing next to the Gate of Hadrian (or Arch of Hadrian, wrongly called so).

10:30 am: Enter the site of the Temple of Zeus & walk close to it.

11:00 am: Depart the Temple of Zeus and walk towards Syndagma Square, in order to catch up with the Changeof the Guards, at 12:00 pm. See some sites, on the way (National Gardens, Churches, metro excavations, etc.).

12:00 pm: Be at the Parliament Building & Memorial to the Unknown Soldier & watch the Change of the Guards. After the Change of the Guards, walk through SyndagmaSquare, towards & through Ermou Street. See (and pay a quick visit, if open) the unique "Kapnikarea" Byzantine church. Continue, through the Old City of Athens, towards Monastiraki Square (old market area).

1:00 pm: Enjoy an hour's exploration, for quick "souvlaki" & Greek salad lunch and shopping.

2:00 pm: Meet in front of the ancient Agora, so as to enter the site for a visit to the Temple of Hephaestus.

2:45 pm: Depart the upper exit of the Agora & walk towards the New Acropolis Museum. If we are lucky & meet the little trainon wheels (on the way), we could jump on to it and get to the Museum quicker...It costs approx. 6 euros, per person (hopefully, ticket will not be increased this year).

3:15 pm: Arrive at the Entrance of the New Acropolis Museum. Quick visito f the Museum - just to see the original Caryatids & the Parthenon'ssculptures, not to mention the unique inner arrangement & structure of the Museum, which is worth seeing.

4:00 pm: Pick up the mini-bus, from the coach park(at the back of the New Acropolis Museum). Transfer back to Piraeus Port.

5:00: Back at ship.

In case anyone is interested, our awesome guide's contact info is as follows:

KapiPanou

Philosophical School - University of Athens

Licensed Tourist Guide for Greece

Trainer - School of Guides, Athens, 2005 - 2010

National Trainer of WFTGA

Tel.:+30 6976122505

E-mail: kapipanou@yahoo.gr

You're welcome. You're right, two days is not enough. It was definitely only a taste of Athens. I do hope to come back someday to savor Athens. There was still other places to see. It was hard to pass by the Stoa and not go see it. And hard to walk through Plaka and see many nice Greek-style dresses and sandals and not have time to shop.

And I agree with Tiggertastic. We allocated one hour each way to/from ship so 10 hours total and it worked well for us.

Hope you all have an awesome trip!

Coming back to this thread to just provide feedback about our experience (several years late but better late than never). We had an amazing time at Athens! We ended up taking out the Temple of Zeus and we just viewed the Theater of Dionysus from afar. But we did everything else. We traded our Plaka shopping time for a seat-in meal at a restaurant so we were able to enjoy Greek food. We went in early June so the weather was hot but not yet unbearable.

I credit our successful tour to our tour guide, Kapi Panou. She was awesome! She calibrated the tour to increase/decrease the time for the various sites to make them most interesting to us. She was even able to add a visit to a small but historically significant church and a quick stop to the metro station that had an interesting display about the excavations at that site. When we visited the New Acropolis Museum, she narrated the displays in such a way that it mimics how a traveller to Acropolis would have experienced it in ancient times. Kapi had excellent English and she had a wealth of knowledge about the various sites. Not surprising since she is a trainer for tour guides. We found her in Viator and her price was reasonable for a large group like ours. I do wish to come back to Athens someday to do touring on our own for a more in depth experience and some shopping :-)

Hi Jinteso, I have gathered a lot of info about the topic you are seeking. Will share with you the info this weekend since it is almost 2am now and have work tomorrow. I noticed you wanted to go to the same places that we wanted to go to including the Faberge Museum. Maybe we can join forces. I know your private group is smaller than mine. I would love to go smaller if we can afford your group's price.

Hi Jinteso, I saw that you already posted your private tour in the roll call. So I'll skip sending you the info I mentioned during the week. Looks like a great tour although out of our price range. Hope we can both find other cruisers to join our private tours coz I agree that private tours are the way to go!

Hi Jinteso, I have gathered a lot of info about the topic you are seeking. Will share with you the info this weekend since it is almost 2am now and have work tomorrow. I noticed you wanted to go to the same places that we wanted to go to including the Faberge Museum. Maybe we can join forces. I know your private group is smaller than mine. I would love to go smaller if we can afford your group's price.

Thank you again for all the input. I went ahead and bought our Vatican tickets. And I heeded others' advice to put some cushion and flexibility into our tight schedule. Sigh of relief for finishing Rome planning. Onwards to the next cities to plan :-) Ciao.

I've done a bit more reading of others' postings here in Trip Advisor and going with Plan B. Hope I made the right choice. Thanks to everyone for all your input in this thread.

Thank you to everyone. Your responses have been very helpful and I am close to finalizing our Rome trip segment.

Wow! Thank you for all the advice from everyone! These are all very helpful--from input about audioguides versus guided tours, dress codes, less crowded times, theft alert, etc. Really appreciate all of them!!!

After taking all the input into consideration, I am considering the following 2 itineraries. Which do you think will be better (less waiting in lines outside and less crowds inside)?

Plan A:

9 am – 11:30: Vatican Museum using audio guides** (assuming use of shortcut door)

11:30 – 12:30: St Peters Basilica

12:30 – 1:30: Lunch

2:00 – 4:00: Castel Sant Angelo DIY

5:15-6:15: Elevator Rome

Plan B:

8:30am – 9:30: St Peters Basilica (line up by 8 am)

10:00 – 12:00: Castel Sant Angelo DIY

12:30 – 1:30: Lunch break

2:00 – 4:30: Vatican Museum with audioguides

5:15-6:15: Elevator Rome

 

**Questions:

- Can we turn in audioguides before entering the Sistine Chapel so we can take the shortcut exit from Sistine Chapel to St Peter’s Basilica (I will turn them in up front while husband and son continues viewing inside museum and then I walk back to where they are and we enter the Sistine Chapel together. What is the probability the front desk where I will return the audioguides will let me do this?

- Also, I heard that it might take me 30 minute to go from Vatican Museum front area to Sistine Chapel area because of the crowds so the roundtrip return could take me 1 hour. Are the lines in the Basilica usually more than an hour to justify doing it this way?

- Is it still true nowadays that afternoons are less crowded than mornings at the Vatican? We will be visiting mid-June 2014 and this is a pre-cruise stop so we are not in danger of missing the ship.

-For my son who has no background about Roman history, would Elevator Rome really give him at least a basic introduction? Or would our time be better spent climbing the Basilican cupola instead of doing Rome Elevator?

Thanks again in advance for additional input as I finalize the Rome segment of our trip.

Hello, we will be visiting the Vatican in June and my 10 year old son said that he wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. We also plan to visit the other parts of the museum. I am planning to book the 8:30 tour and hopefully it will not be as crowded yet at that time of the day.

Here is my question: I am trying to determine which one would be better between these 2 options for kids.

• Visit using the Vatican guided tour: advantage is that we hear the narration from a Vatican expert. Disadvantage is that narration is probably geared more towards adults and the Sistine Chapel will most likely be crowded by 10:30 am which is about when the guided tour will get to the Sistine Chapel.
  
• 
  
• Visit withOUT a guide and rent an audioguide for kids and adults: advantage is that we can go straight to the Sistine Chapel before the crowds arrive (can the audioguide be forwarded to the Sistine Chapel which is at the end?) and then visit the rest of the museum. Another advantage is that the kid's audioguide would be tailored for kids. Disadvantage is that we don't get the benefit of a Vatican expert guide's narration.
  

The prices are almost the same between the two options above (5 euro difference for adults and 7 euros difference for kids between guided and not guided tour).

Your input would be much appreciated.

I noticed that there were a lot of views of this thread so I am sharing a couple of the underlying principles I used to put the schedule together, in case other Athen's first time visitors are wondering about that:

1. Historical structures versus museums:

I was re-reading the entire thread and acknowledge that the museums did not get as much time as they should. That was a very difficult choice and didn't even get to include the Stoa (sigh) due to limited time at this port. I read a book (Frommer's 500 Places to See Before They Disappear) and my take away is that these historical structures are disappearing so if we want to see them in their natural habitat and state, do so as soon as we are able to. In comparison, items that are already in the musems are already being preserved and most likely will be still there when we do visit again. So for the cities we are visiting, that is the thought process I was following when I have to make the difficult choice of historical structure versus museum. I just hope that we will be lucky enough like the other posters so come again someday.

2. A packed "see as much as we can" pace but only get a taste of the places versus a more leisurely and more in depth visit of a few selected places. Another difficult choice. For a first time visit of the place, I opt for the 1st method and see as much as I can, in case I don't come back to the place again. For a return visit, I choose the 2nd method and focus on certain places at a more leisurely pace. This strategy has worked well. For example, I have visited the Holy Land and Argentina. Hectic trips where we saw a lot of the places which I am glad we did because I am not sure I will have a chance to visit them again since as previously mentioned, the bucket list is long. In comparison, we are lucky enough to visit again places such as London and Rome. And for those return visits, we opted for the more leisurely pace. It does sound like we should put a return trip to Greece in our list--just saw pictures of Cappadocia and still lots to see at Athens.

Btw, the title of this thread might be misleading. It is really 8 hours for the actual sightseeing plus up to 2 hours for the travel time between port and city so up to 10 hours total for this port stop.

Athens will be a first time visit so we are trying to see as much as we can. The big question is about calibrating the schedule. It will be packed but i hope I can put together a realistic and achievable plan, with adequate time to be back at the ship before it sails away. I am continuing to tweak our schedule--I now have classified the places under either the Priority 1 versus Priority 2 list. Again, thank you for your responses/feedback.

I forgot to mention the traffic in Athens is awful. It will take a while to even get into Athens from the ship. I don't remember the exact time, but I'm thinking it was something like an hour. That will need to be figured into your time.

Regarding grannycb's point on the traffic, can the Athens's experts weigh in on what is the usual travel time (our group has a minibus) from Piraeus port to Acropolis around 7:30 am and the return at around 4:30 pm? It makes a difference in our plans if I should allocate 30 minutes versus one hour each way.

Thanks again to everyone for the input. We might have to resort to those bakeries to tie us over during our packed "taste of Athens" tour.

I am still surprised that cruises stop for only 1 day in Athens. Should be at least a 1 1/2 day port stop like Istanbul. I wouldn't mind paying a little bit more for the extra time in Athens since we have come soooo far. I'll have to check which cruise companies do have a longer stop for future visits (unfortunately, in the very distant future since our bucket list is long).

Thanks again to everyone for the input. We might have to resort to those bakeries to tie us over during our packed "taste of Athens" tour.

Hi SadieN, thank you for the quick response! This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to hear about. Follow-up question, is that E30 the guides rate for the tour, regardless of the number of people in our group (i.e., it is not the per person cost)? And for how many hours is that E30 rate based on your own actual experience?

Hi cruisemom, thank you also for the detailed response! Follow-up question, do the guides usually have a fixed rate so the more people in our group, the cheaper the per person cost will be? If that is the case, we can "partner" with another family or two from the cruise so we can all benefit from the cost savings.

Got my answer about the walking tour. Found out that there are several companies that offer free walking tours and this one sounds good based on the reviews: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187791-d1549786-Reviews-New_Rome_Free_Tour-Rome_Lazio.html.

We do still want a guide for the Forum and the Vatican. Looking forward to reading your input.

Hello! We will be in Rome this summer and we are wondering if there are usually lots of private guides outside the Forum and the Vatican Museum. Do you know how much they usually charge? Are they there only at the beginning of the day or throughout the day?

We wanted an inexpensive private guide for those two places but did not want to be tied down to a set schedule which would happen if we pre-arrange a tour or a guide.

Also, does anyone have any experience and input about the free walking tours in Rome? My quick perusal of trip advisor indicated that the free guides don't always show up at the designated meeting spot and time. But there are also positive reviews. What was your experience, if you have used them?

Thanks in advance for your input.

What time does your ship dock, and how early can you disembark. 8:00 am seems like it might be aggressive.

Ship docks in Piraeus port at 6 am to 6 pm. We are planning to have the minivan pick us up between 7:15 and 7:30.

How long is the usual driving time at that time of the day?

The van drops us off at Athens at around 8 am and picks us up from Athens around 4 pm. The guide will be with us during that time for an 8-hr walking tour which I outlined above.

Do you think there is time to drive by the Panathenaic Stadium on the way back to the port and still be at the ship by 5 pm? A group member is requesting that stop. I had it in my original plan but it got cut out because supposedly out of the way so I was secretly hoping that we can talk the driver into swinging by for pictures. Is that along the way and easy to stop by?

PS: thank you for the packing tips! I tend to bring too much!

Thank you to everyone for your valuable feedback! I am tweaking our schedule to identify the must see and the optionals. We are targeting to do as much as we can to get a "taste of Athens". We will have to come back someday to "savor Athens". It may have to wait for a loooong time coz we are all the way from the west coast of the US and the airfare to Greece is super expensive. I envy the eastcoasters who are able to hop over to Europe more readily.

Some of my takeaways are to start with the Acropolis and get there early (we are planning to be there at 8 a.m.), cutout shopping and lessen time at the Acropolis, allocate add'l time to the museum, plan for the heat, maximize use of the driver, expect that not everything will go according to plan so be willing to be flexible in the moment by cutting out optionals when needed, and order a transporter from the Star Trek suppliers :-) .

Thanks agains and onwards to more cruising!

Don, you are making me re-think my plan. I am going to have to make some difficult choices on which ones to cut out. Thanks for the input.

Wow, thanks a million for the responses! Sounds like we should cut some time from Acropolis and Plaka and use the extra time for the Museum or as margin for any overage at other sites. We have a few kids in our group so had to break the ruins/museum emphasis :-). I really appreciate all your input!

Hello! I am hoping that the seasoned cruisers can give me feedback if the following itinerary I have planned for our Athens tour is doable or too hectic. This is the itinerary I am requesting from our guide for our walking tour but I am not sure if I am asking for the impossible. Here is my list with an estimate of the allotted combined walking/visiting/picture-taking time (but NOT arranged in chronological order) to see if they fit in 8 hours. I have not been to Athens so not sure if my time estimates are reasonable. Thank a million in advance for your input.

Acropolis 2.00 hours

Temple of Zeus 0.50

Temple of Hephestus 0.50

Theater of Dionysus 0.50

Changing of Guards 1.00

Panathenaic Stadium 0.50

Plaka Shopping 1.00

Acropolis Museum 1.50

Lunch 0.50

Total 8.00 hours