Overall

I visited athens for a week with my family including mother who has some difficulty walking. I expected a city with an ancient feel to it, like Rome, instead it felt like a noisy rather ugly place with a few sites plonked amidst the high rise buildings. The whole city is very difficult to get around, fine for me, but my mum found it almost painful and dangerous, broken up pavements with cars parked all over them. I always make the effort to be friendly, respectful and learn a few words of a languge. I have never met a more unfriendly, discourteous people than the athenians, do they just hate the brits? although there did seem to be a general air of moodiness. Lowlights include the owner of the apartment where we were staying, who was supposed to be meeting us outside, standing there impassively without a word of welcome and silently ushering us up without offering any help, secondly the taxi driver who lied to us, took us to the wrong place, then tried to con 50 euros out of my brother (for a 5 min journey), the numerous workers at the acropolis who were disinterested and monosyllabic when i asked if there was an easier way for my mother to get up to the top..I'd like to say these were isolated instances, but were on the whole representative..Plaka is full of ridiculously priced tourist tat. On the positive side, using the rough guide, we found some nice, reasonably priced restaurants with very good and friendly service. I would also recommend the boat trip to one of the islands, Poros was nice..If you go to Athens, go for as short a time as possible then escape to an island.

Atmosphere

Convenience

Safety

Value

Last Visit: June 2008

12 June 2008 | A Yahoo! User

You have found this review helpful.