We are planning to spend our last two days in Greece in Napflion and see some of the sites close by. My question is how long is the drive to the Athens airport? And could we do that the morning of our flight which leaves at 12:30 pm? Or should we drive back the night before and stay somewhere close to the airport?

I remember Napflion as being about two and a half or three hours from Athens (can't say exactly to the airport). Personally, I would probably try to stay closer so that I was not worried about getting there far enough in advance to return the rental car and check in -- but I'm not a morning person. If you can get up and get on the road fairly early you could probably make it work.

Oh, please, it's not a problem. You are on a 'superhighway allthe way, you don't get off, you bypass Athens, you don't have traffic light all the way from Nafplio to the airport.

I asked one of Fodor's frequent posters, stanbr, that very question and he said 2 hours, door to door, and that included stopping at the last gas station before the airport (about 10 km out) to fill up the gas. If you were nervous, you could leave at 7:30, and that would still leave you loads of time. Don't give up your last lovely night in Nafplion because of needless worry.

We're planning the same thing but by bus. Would you suggest that we could also leave in the morning for a 12:30 flight? Otherwise maybe we'll reconsider renting a car.

What day of the week are you travelling to the airport and what time?

We hit gridlock traffic on that superhighway... I'd be extra careful.

We had gridlock when we drove back to the Athens airport from Napflion particularly if you are gonna try and do it the morning of the flight-think rush hour traffic around Athens.If I remember from last year, there was a two lane road out to Myceanae and then to the main highway that go backed up with the horsecarts and trucks for about 15/20 miles.

Since you have to be at the airport at least 2 1/2 hours early for an international departure-I would stay nearer to the airport? You have the process of dropping off the car which I remember we had to "wait" till our offsite car rental guy came over to get the car from us which took awhile.

By bus I would choose to stay in Athens. You'll need to be at the airport 2hrs before your international flight (or there abouts) and as I recall the bus took about...2.5hrs - then you can just catch a bus directly from the Terminal A station to the airport. You could probably do it....but I wouldn't chance it - could be a traffic jam...could be busy at the airport.

Just my two cents.

Naxos

Arriving from Athens it took us 2 hours 10 minutes to drive to Napflion. Going in the reverse direction we got caught up in traffic in Argos - if we should have bypassed it, we missed the turning - and that added an extra half hour to the journey.

Great feedback, thanks!