Athene, de Akropolis en Kaap Sounion Dagtour met lunch

De Akropolis. Bot genoeg tijd op deze site of de tempel van Poseidon. De tour verspilde tijd aan het ophalen van mensen onderweg. Ik heb het gevoel dat ik heb betaald om zonder reden door de stad te reizen. U moet een centrale locatie hebben waar mensen kunnen wachten en dan aan een rondleiding kunnen beginnen. De lunch die inbegrepen was, kwam met niet eens een fles water. Drie uur van deze tour was een complete taille.

in the morning we were picked up by one bus at our hotel (Wyndham Grand Athens) and dropped at another hotel (Hotel Amalia) in Syntagma Square to meet our Athens tour. We did a brief tour of the city by bus, stopped at the Olympic Stadium and then to the Acropolis. Since we had taken an abbreviated similar tour the day before offered by Princess Cruises, I had the opportunity to climb the Acropolis twice (85 or so steps) but my wife sat out the second opportunity. This tour included admission to the Acropolis museum. Our AM tour guide, Dimitra, was knowledgeable and actually did a better job at the Acropolis than the Princess Tour guide did the day before. The museum has many of the sculptures etc. from the Acropolis which had to be removed to preserve them, due to smog and the elements effect on them. It got a bit hectic after that, since this was actually 3 separate events pieced together, and not a single tour as the writeup suggested. Our AM tour guide walked us to the restaurant for lunch and worked it out with the head waiter and told us we needed to meet our afternoon tour up the street at Hotel Athens Gate at 3 pm. Using Google map, we figured out where that was and got to the hotel, where we picked up the afternoon Tour bus. Fortunately, they had our name on their roster. The afternoon bus drove us down the Greek Rivera with resort homes, beaches, and restaurants- a lovely ride, to Cape Sounion and the Temple of Posidon late in the afternoon. Very scenic and refreshingly different from downtown Athens. After the tour of the Temple, we were driven back into town and dropped off at our respective hotels. The experience of the tours was great, but should be clear that it is really 2 separate tours and a lunch experience, rather than a single tour for the day. Would have been less stressful to have known that when booking.

A tour guide can make or break an experience. Ours was slow, just plodding along, he repeated himself, stopped to provide narrative in high density spots for long periods of time, creating bottle necks for other groups and finally the group was too big to get any value. It was poorly organised, there was just a lot of sitting around in the bus. We were collected late from the pick up spot, only to then be driven to the office and wait in the bus for 30 minutes. Once Acropolis was completed bus was gridlocked in and couldn’t move. It was hot and water should have been provided at that point. The city “highlights” section were very underwhelming. Lunch was good but we had had enough by that point and decided to not bother with the drive to the cape The acropolis is such a marvellous site though, I enjoyed my experience once we got past the stairs and I took out my headset and stopped listening to the guides repeated monotone stories