Athens to Delphi and Meteora, better off driving or tour bus?
 

Hello,

This will be our family's first trip to Greece. We are a family of 5, with 3 children age 13, 10 and 4. I plan to stay in Athens for 3 nights, go to Delphi and Meteora for 3 days, then head to two islands. For the 3 day excursion, is it better off for us to rent a car or go with a tour company?

The tour company charges 305 Euro per person for the 2 night/3 day tour. And car rental should be less than 100 dollar per day. .All the guide books seem to suggest it is best not to drive in Greece, especially around Athens. But my husband has always enjoyed manual shift driving and we drove in Ireland and France before.

Few days ago I asked if we can find taxi that will fit 5 person in Athens and learned that we need two taxi. Maybe we should just pick up a car at Athens airport instead?

Any suggestion and advice are greatly appreciated.

If I had a family of 5 I would definitely drive. Just don't drive in Athens. I did the bus tour and wish I could have driven.

And there is train and or bus service too - I took a bus to Delphi and once there you do not need a car - but as Belinda says with a family of 5 it makes sense to drive yourself - hotels abound in Delphi - for all budgets - be sure to go to the ruins at dusk after the tourist hoardes have left - an eerie marvelous feeling - surrealistic - you can almost hear the Delphi Oracle calling you...

It makes no sense to rent a car at the airport and drive to your hotel with it...
1. you will have to pay for a garage ( add approximately 25 Euros per day)

2. you won't need the car in Athens at all, as everything will be in walking distance if you stay in the centre, using public transportation is very easy too.

Doing the tour with a rental car is a good idea, but you will need a car of a higher category, that will have space for your luggage. ( which will cost more than 100 USD per day(

I don't know why tourist guides suggest not to drive in Greece, i drive everyday and i have been allover Greece without any problems. There are also hundreds of thousands of tourists that either come with their own car to Greece or rent one ... i don't believe you will have any problems if you rent a car ( and drive carefully)

I also have driven all over Greece and never saw anything problematic, except in the hectic Athens area as noted.

If you don't want to drive you certainly don't have to take a tour. The KTEL buses are very good, and there's also a train between Meteora and Athens. You can easily hire a taxi in Kalambaka to take you to the monastries.

I don't think that it would be convenient for a family of 5 with children of that age and all that luggage to take KTEL buses and taxis...

No reason to have a lot of luggage. See, for example, http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-to-europe.cfm

ACR rentals based at the airport www.athens-carrental.com are easily reached by metro from Athens and have quite large vehicles at very good prices.
Try also economycarrentals.com

Thank you very much everybody. Looks like we will be driving to Delphi and Meteora. We were going to have to rent car in Santorini anyway, might as well get use to Greek road beforehand.

Clausar, we will take your advice about not picking up car in the airport. And I'm sure we will have a good time driving in Greece.

thrusdaysd, thanks for the link about luggage. I did have a tendency of packing too much, and learned my lesson during our trip to Hawaii. We prob. will drive instead of taking buses. i figure Metro in Athens, as well as ferries to islands will give the kids enough "public transportation exposure" this time. :)

And Tommmo, thanks for the car rental links. I've booked one through Expedia(no deposit/credit card info provided) as a back up, and will do more research and price comparison.

Try Kemwel.com and Autoeurope.com, car rental brokers who are US-based sister companies. I always get my best prices through them. Easy to deal with if there are any issues and will beat your best price at their competitors.

I have read of folks here renting through economycarrentals.com with no problems.

Thank you joannyc for the link. Indeed I have found better deals than Expedia.

I too would drive. But whatever you do, don't go all the way back out to the airport to pick up a car. Driving in Athens is not the hard part... it's parking that's hard to find. Plan your route and leave outside of rush hours and you'll be fine.

I rented in 2008 through economycarrentals.com The actual car was supplied by Avis from the office opposite the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. It was then an easy drive down Syngrou Avenue to the highway.

Rather than follow main highway, the National Road, I suggest you follow signs to Elefsina then take the road to Delphi via Thebes (Thives). A much smaller, quieter and more scenic route. You'll come back to Athens via the National Road anyway. The kids might get a charge out of the restaurant at a big rest stop not far out of Athens on the big highway... its built right above and across the road so people from both directions can use it. It was a fun place to stop for a snack with the cars and trucks all thundering beneath you.

ParisAmsterdam, thank you very much for the detail advice. I noticed on the Expedia site, all the american car rental companies (Avis, Hertz, Budget) are located on Syngrou Avenue, and figure it must be a "headquarter for car renting" or something. "easy drive to the highway" settles it. :) And my little one loves to watch all kinds of vehicle, so we will make sure to stop by that restaurant.

You're welcome. There's one oddity about the route leaving the city via Syngrou... you will be wanting to turn to the right to get onto the motorway toward Piraeus. Left would be the direction for Cape Sounion. But oddly, you need to exit left for the ultimate direction you will want. It is well signed but seems counter-intuitive. I wish there was Google Streetview to be able to show you but sadly it doesn't exist in Greece.

Once you get onto the motorway stay right as the exit to head north is not far. The signs will say "Lamia".

Also, if you decide to take the route to Delphi via Elefsina and Thebes you can exit the motorway and take the old road or continue a little farther and grab the new toll motorway. In 2008 I took the old road.

When you return from Meteora the map will show you that you can easily sail right past Athens on the motorway and return the car at the airport.

Google Streetview is not allowed in Greece, as it was against the law that protects the privacy of citizens.
They had sent a company to film/take photos of Athens, but they had to stop and everything got cancelled.
Pity, as it would be very useful....

"Pity, as it would be very useful...."

Maybe, but I'm delighted to see somewhere taking a stand for privacy. It's very creepy knowing that my cyber-stalker can look at photos of my house.

Bookmarking this post for my trip. Thanks!

Google Streetview drove into and filmed my private driveway! :-( I had to complain to get it removed.