Organized tours are a great way to explore a city, but while they check all the must-see boxes, they often follow congested routes, compete for views and provide rehearsed narratives — and that can leave travelers disappointed and unfulfilled. But, thanks to creative tour companies serving the Athens area, visitors to Greece have more rewarding options. Here are some of the highlights.
Unique Tours in Athens
Alternative Athens offers tours showcasing the real Athens in a way that helps visitors truly connect with the city and its surroundings. Owner Tina Sklavolia-Kyriakis knows the needs of some travelers just don’t fit into a standard city tour, so she set out to create unique experiences that address this issue.
She and her team offer a variety of tours that unpack the historic city through art, food, storytelling and even running a race in the first modern Olympic stadium. But it’s the sensory tour of the Acropolis — a truly one-of-a-kind experience for visually impaired travelers that introduces them to the city’s most famous monument through touch — that sets the tour operator apart. Sklavolia-Kyriakis believes that travelers with visual impairments should be able to enjoy destinations as much as sighted tourists; she makes this a reality by providing these clients with access to places they may never experience on their own. Working with the Acropolis, Alternative Athens has special permission to allow participants to touch certain parts of the monument, an activity that is generally off-limits.
Hellas Vintage Tours, meanwhile, offers an equally unique experience through an unexpected method of transportation: a vintage sidecar motorcycle. The operator provides everything clients need for a safe and comfortable ride — goggles, helmets, blankets and seatbelts — and there is no previous motorcycle experience needed. Thanks to experienced drivers and the vehicle’s design, it rides more like a car, and guests traveling in pairs can take turns riding in the sidecar and on the back of the motorcycle. The operatory offers two city tour options and two longer excursions along the Athenian Riviera to the Temple of Poseidon for the sunset. And since the tours are entirely flexible, guests can stop for food, coffee, drinks or even a swim at one of the many sun-kissed beaches along the way.
Tuk Tuk Athens, too, offers a unique mode of transport — one that’s cropping up in cities throughout Europe. Electric tuk-tuks take visitors on tours of the city, both by day and by evening, to visit all the major sites. The e-vehicles offer a sustainable option to large tour buses, and the small size of the vehicles allows them to find parking anywhere, anytime in a city where the streets are crowded and parking is always at a premium.
Active Tours in Athens
With Athens By Bike, visitors can exercise while seeing the city. The eco-friendly option is helpful in Athens, where popular sites are scattered around the city, and sidewalks are not always pedestrian-friendly.
The tours can accommodate any skill level, and many utilize electric bikes, which come in handy on excursions such as the Athens City and Sea Electric Bike Tour, a half-day ride along the city’s Athenian Riviera coastline. Some bike tours offer views of popular sites from a distance, but Athens By Bike provides a tour that includes a visit inside the Acropolis with a licensed tour guide, ensuring clients see the structure up close and learn about its storied history.
Local operator Greek Mythology Tours offers family-friendly excursions that highlight the mythology and lore in Rick Riordan’s popular series “Percy Jackson & the Olympians."
Credit: 2024 Greek Mythology ToursFamily-Friendly Tours
Families who love mythology and lore will adore experiences from Greek Mythology Tours, which are centered around Rick Riordan’s popular “Percy Jackson & the Olympians" fantasy book series. The tours are designed to inspire a love for Greece and its monuments by tapping into its rich mythology, and the operator offers fully customizable private tours, including arranging birthday parties and other special celebrations.
Greek Mythology Tours excursions offers both day trips and multiday tours that visit archaeological sites inside and outside the city that appear in Riordan’s novels. Ideal for single families or a group of like-minded families, these trips utilize guides who are knowledgeable of the sites and well-versed in the Percy Jackson books. Many tours include activity books for kids with quests for each site, as well as virtual reality devices to make the experiences fully interactive.
Athens for Kids, meanwhile, is the brainchild of Natalie Sampas, a child psychologist who understands that tours need to be fun, interactive and timed just right for children to get the most out of the experience. Athens for Kids’ tours are ideal for families with children ages 4 to 10, as they provide short, fun, focused experiences. Combining play with learning js an approach that Sampas believes instills a love for the city, its museums and its ancient monuments.
“Culture is all about stories, but we have to tell those stories in a child-friendly way,” she said.
In addition to tours, Athens for Kids also offers workshops that include building a Lego replica of the Acropolis and making origami mythological creatures. Each experience is curated by specialists, who help families choose quality activities that feature the city’s history and culture without entering what Sampas calls “the boredom zone.”
Clients on a food tour will sample classic Athenian dishes.
Credit: 2024 Alternative AthensFood Tours
Food tours showcase the flavors and ingredients of a culture, often through exploring the city on foot. Athens offers plenty of such tours, but only celebrity chef Diane Kochilas has been doing it since before food tours in the city were a thing. The star of PBS show “My Greek Table” and her team incorporate their intimate knowledge of the city and Kochilas’ expertise as a chef and restaurateur to bring Athenian flavors to life.
The 4.5-hour Taste Athens walking tour around the city visits local markets, restaurants, bakeries and bars, and groups are limited to 10 clients. Clients can also opt for private and specialty food walks, where they can customize their experience based on specific interests such as Greek food culture, traditional music or nightlife.
