Last fall I was in Athens, and went to the Acropolis, but on a tour bus from the small boat harbor. While we were at the Acropolis, I think that I saw plenty of local town buses, but I didn't pay enough attention at the time.

In a few weeks, I'll be back in Athens on a cruise. I don't want to do the ship's tour - they don't give you enough time, you are herded around like cattle, etc, etc.

I'd like to take a local town bus from the cruise ship port to the Acropolis. There are 6 of us.

Can someone describe how I can do this? What bus number, can you pay on board or must you get tickets first, how long does it take?

Another alternative is to take the metro from Piraeus to Monastiraki. Then make your way to the flea market nearby and use the Agora entrance to walk up to the Acropolis. I'm not sure though, how far the cruise port is to the metro.

With this info, I'll should be able to check online.

If you go to www.europeportreviews.com and click on Athens, you will find a review by Tom Ogg on how to do your own excursion from a cruise ship. He includes photos.

Have fun. I will be in Athens on Nov. 3 and will take the metro to the Acropolis.

What simple instructions to get to the metro (just head north in the port, until the port turns west, and there it is).

Then round trip cost to the Acropolis is less that 2 euro, and the Acropolis entrance fee is 12 euro.

That's a lot less that the $75 or so that the cruise lines charge. And you even get to start any time you want, and stay as long as you like.

But you do have to walk for about 30 minutes more to the metro and back.

And you can even stop to eat in the Plaka area if you want.

This is a no-brainer.

The walk from the Cruise dock where we tied up, took about 30 minutes to get to the Metro station. You can't miss it. Stay on the water side of the sidewalk as you walk North and follow the port. It curves left and right a few times. There is a pedestrian overpass at the metro station, so you cannot miss it. The metro took about 25 or 30 minutes to the Monastaraki (sp?) stop in the Plaka, at the North base of the Acropolis. You can get a 24 hour unlimited metro pass for 3 euro. With each single metro ticket at 1.40, then this is only .20 extra for an unlimited pass beyond the cost of 2 single metro tickets, and it gives you the flexibility of being able to take any number of other metro trips that you may want.

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