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Beware of hotels and taxi drivers
Athens Review: |
Date posted: May 17, 2009
Posted by: Koklt
Times Viewed: 1748
More: Athens
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Things are strange in Athens, you will find calm areas where noise is not at all heard like Thissio and other areas where your ears will get pain from loud. We stayed there for three days before we go to Mykonos and had the chance to see amny ancient sites (the Acropolis of course, the Ancient Agora and the temple of Zeus). Fortunately, these sites are close and the transport is very convenient. The Metro of Athens is much better than undergrounds in all European cities. Of course it is newer, but it seems like they pay a good care of them.
I was surprised to see so many foreigners in Athens. I don't mean tourists, but immigrants mostly from the Middle East and the Balcans. You could see them almost everyhwere, but they seemed to have their ghetos in the downtown (Omonoia and Monastiraki). The square of Omonoia seemed to me dangerous in the night. Always be with company there, otherwise it is very dangerous. Our hotel was in Omonoia (I know that most hotels in Athens are there), but if I go again in Athens, I will book a room in a nicer suburd, maybe Piraeus to be close to the port. After all, there is a train to Piraeus from the centre of Athens every 10 minutes and the trip is only 20 minutes and very comfortable.
I don't want to speak about the sites, you will probably know about them. Another thing to pay attention is the taxi drivers. We took a taxi twice in Athens and both our experiences were bad. In our first ride from the airport of Athens to our hotel in Omonoia, the driver was an old man that would speak very bad English and our communication was very difficult. I wonder, why would a man whi doesn't speak English get clients from the airport? Anyway, apart from that, he was driving so fast that we got scared. I asked him to go slower, but he couldn't understand what we were saying, so he kept driving wild. In general, you will notice that most Greeks don't pay attention in driving, but this man was something crazy.
Our second taxi ride was from Kifisia to Omonoia (we lost the last night train, so took a cab to get back to our hotel) was also bad. The driver was almost rude to us and seemed to have a lot of nerves. Also, he charged us 20 euros from the ride that didn't last more than 30 minutes. Almost a euro a minute! The fare was double because it was after midnight, but still 20 euros seemed much for us.
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