7 hours at the athens airport
 

Arriving Athens from Philadelphia at 9AM.
Daparting Athens to Chania at 4PM.
We are planning to store our luggages at the airport, take Metro to the city and eat lunch at Plaka. Is it doable? Appreciate any suggestions and advise.

Even with 5 hours (arriving at the airport 2 hours early) You should have enough time to visit the Acroplois as well as eat in the Plaka. The new airport is quite a ways out, I don't know if a taxi might be faster. I didnt even know they had a metro from the airport, and have been there 5 times!

You'll have plenty of time. The airport Metro takes 45 minutes to the Monastiraki station on the edge of the Plaka, costs 6 euro each or two for 10 euro. Exit the main hall and walk across the SkyWalk to the Metro building. Buy your tickets in the lobby, validate them in the machine at the top of the stairs, then go below and get on the Metro train, not mistaking the Suburban Railway for the Metro (Metro train has the Metro logo on the cars). Monastiraki is the last stop.

If you can check in early for your flight to Chania, do so before you leave the airport. That will save you the cost of checking your luggage, and you can then go straight to the departure gate upon return.

The metro, for something built so recently, is surprisingly slow and infrequent (though seemingly totally reliable), so check the times carefully. And using the airport's left luggage facility is a bit time-consuming because of the security procedures. If you can check your bags to Chania first, or get them through checked in Philadelphia, do so.

Nonetheless, on a shorter similar stopover, I had time for a good hour and a half on the Acropolis, a decent lunch and a good look round Acropolis tube station: by several stathmoi and a fair few parasangs the most gobsmackingly fascinating underground railway station on the planet.

Almost as many classical artefacts, properly displayed, as any museum outside London, Athens or Berlin.

JNG,

Which just did that very thing. We flew USAir from Philly to Athens. OUr flight was a little late - I think we arrived closer to 10AM, but were booked on the 4PM flight to Chania on Aegean Air. We were able to go ahead and check our luggage with Aegean and then we took the Metro to the Plaka had had lunch. Not rushed at all.

A cab from the Monistiraki area for 4 (we did this on our departure day) was 30 Euro and was very fast on a Tuesday morning and only 6 Euro more than taking the Metro, but I think you might be better off taking the metro on your arrival day given that traffic going in to the city may be heavier.

I believe the name of the place where we had our lunch is Thanasis. It is very close to the metro station and is famous for its souvlaki.

Thanks.