ljagla

On arriving at the airport in Athens, will taxi drivers know English? We could try French, Italian or Spanish, but probably not Greek. What do you seasoned travellers advise? A map to the hotel?

elaine

Actually, I'd advise, as I do in many cities, having your hotel arrange for a car service to pick you up at the airport.
However, any taxi driver worth his/her salt should be able to find any hotel, especially if you provide the address.

cmt

If you can pronounce more or less correctly in Greek the name of your hotel, and the name of the street, it should be fine even if the driver knows only Greek, which is probably unlikely anyway. After the first day, I used to print in Greek the names of places I'd be searching for, so just in case my pronunciation didn't come across well, I could show people what I was looking for. (It's not too likely that the driver will know Spanish, but there's a good chance that he will know English or French or German, I think.)

cmt

I meant to say Italian, too. I found that a lot of Greeks knew Italian. But really, these days so many people in tourist-related jobs know some English AND it will not be too hard to pronounce the name of your hotel and street in approximately correct Greek, especially since it's obvious you're not someone who shies away from foreign languages, given your willingness to try any of three other languages if English doesn't work..

StCirq

If you actually have the information in the cyrillic alphabet, I'd write down the name of the hotel and the address and hand that to the driver.

It's been ages since I was in Greece, and when I last was I stayed at the Hotel California, which didn't need a lot of foreign-language help to decipher, but I'm sure if you have the hotel info in Greek on paper, your taxi driver will get you there.

I would guess from experience that the next-closest language they will recognize is German, but I suppose that might have changed in the 20+ years since I've been there.

grandmere

I've been to Greece twice and don't know a word of Greek and never needed to. You will be fine. Have fun; it's a wonderful place!

rdskier2000

Most everybody in Greece have some knowledge of English. Please note their alphabet is the Greek one not Cyrillic which is used in Russian and parts of the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere.English is much more common to Greeks than German, French or Italian.They have had a long history with Britain and that is why they start English in their public schools at nine years of age, earlier than any other foreigh language. Please note in that past 10 years or so many Albanians have immigrated to Greec and they may not be as familiar with English.Have a good trip

jules4je7

We had a hard time finding a Greek person in any service (hotel, cab, restaurant) that didn't speak a little English when we were in Athens in 2003.

When we were in Turkey, that was another story, when we found few if any Turks who spoke English in the smaller or less touristed areas we traveled in...but if you know how to say the name of your hotel and write down the name with the address, you'll be fine.

It's always good to get a phrasebook so you can point at what you need, and they can respond to that.

The Greeks are very nice, and a smile and a thank you in Greek goes a long way. I think "thank you" is pronounced phonetically as "Ef Cadeest-O" if I recall correctly...

Happy travels,

Jules

cmt

P.S. to my previous comments. When I was in Greece in the 1970s (Athens, parts of mainland, Rhodes, Samos), most people I encountered did not speak English or just spoke little snippets of it. I really needed to be able to ask "where is___?" in Greek and to recognize the words on a menu for fish, salads, etc., and to know words for water, wine, the various numbers, etc. When I went again about seven years ago (Santorini, Crete, Athens), most people working in businesses that dealt with foreigner spoke English. However, it was really fun to try to use a little bit of Greek. I do suggest learning the Greek alphabet, at least lower case, and some necesary phrases (where is____ being one of the most important, I think), and you'll probably pick up a lot of words, e.g., for various types of structures and fruits, as you go along.

cmt

http://www.1728.com/greek.htm

worldinabag

Hi

When arriving in Madrid recently I caught a taxi from the airport but the driver was not familiar with my hostal or the street it was in. Unfortunately I can't speak Spanish so I showed him a photocopy of a map for my hostal. Worked like a charm.

So yes a map to the hotel saves a lot of hassles.

See ya.

ljagla

Thanks to all you great Fodorites! I have a phrase-book and am ready to go! We managed Budapest, so I guess we can do this too..........