Should we visit Athens? Part 4 Greek culture activities

Introduction

The purpose of this post is to identify activities to explore Greek culture. In doing so I will draw on our identified interests, tours, and cultural themes. In addition, it will be useful to start considering the time required for any visit to Athens, any places that we want to visit, tours we wish to take, and potential costs.

However, in the first instance, let’s recap our interests, tours and cultural themes determined in previous posts:

• Interests: Should we visit Athens? Part 1 – A Framework for Research
• Tours: Should we visit Athens? Part 2 – Athens Tours
• Cultural Themes: Should we visit Athens? Part 3 Seeking Culture

Activities to explore Greek Culture

Just as the issue of culture arose prior to my previous post, the issues of time, place and cost have encroached on our thinking since Part 3.

Our preliminary thoughts are to spend about 10 days in Athens/Greece with a minimum of seven days and a maximum of 14 days. Similarly, we wish to visit Athens, Meteora and a Greek Island. These criteria will bring some discipline to the identification and selection of potential activities.

I’ll use the identified places to guide the discussion about activities.

Athens – Tours to explore Greek Culture

The Acropolis

1. Athens Afternoon Tour (3.5 Hours, EUR 65)
2. Just the Acropolis & the Acropolis Museum Tour (3.5 Hours, EUR 49)
   1. Cultural themes: History, Architecture
   2. Our Interests: History, Architecture
   3. Comment: There are plenty of tours to cater to your needs for this must-do event

Athens Highlights

1. Athens Highlights Walking Tour (4 Hours, EUR 49)
   1. Cultural Themes: History; Customs and Traditions (Markets; urban culture – Psyrri, Monastiraki, Plaka)
   2. Our Interests: Important landmarks; local life; markets
   3. Comment: This is a tour of Athens highlights other than the Acropolis

Food Tours:

1. Athens Food Tour (3.5 Hours, EUR 49)
2. Athens Walking Food Tour(4 Hours, EUR 65)
3. Food Tour (3.5 Hours EUR 49)
   1. Cultural Themes: Food and Wine; and Cafes
   2. Our Interests: Local food
   3. Comment: There are good opportunities if food tours are your thing; need to cater for gluten free; non-alcoholic wine

Cooking

1. Athens Cooking Lesson & Dinner (3 Hours + Dinner, EUR 77)

Photography & Street Art:

1. Athens thru the Lens (3 Hours, EUR 77 starting)
2. Athens Street Art Alternative Walking tour (3 Hours, from EUR 40)
3. Private Athens Street Art Walking Tour (4 Hours, EUR 60)
   1. Cultural Themes: Traditions and Culture (urban, social, political)
   2. Our Interests: Street Art, Photography
   3. Comment: Photography tours appear more expensive and street art seems to target culture.

Entertainment:

As yet, I have not been able to identify any concert venues that promote Greek culture, but I’ll keep looking. I don’t know why I am finding this task so difficult.

Summary of Athens – Cultural Activities

At this stage of our planning, I believe we have a baseline plan to visit Athens and capture sufficient aspects of Greek culture. The essential and optional tours listed below should address Athens architecture, local food and wine, history, markets, urban culture, landmarks, cooking and street art.

Essential Tours

1. The Acropolis (3.5 Hours; EUR 65)
2. Athens Highlights (4 Hours; EUR 49)
3. Athens Food Tour (4 Hours; EUR 65)

Optional Tours

1. Cooking Lesson (4 Hours; EUR 77)
2. Street Art (4Hours; EUR 60)

We now have a basic idea of the costs associated with taking these identified tours. Note, I have taken the most expensive price from each category. We will review these tours again once we have analysed the Meteora and Greek island trips.

Free Time:

We always like to have free time to explore a city on our own: to revisit places we liked; to gain a better appreciation of places; take up recommendations gained from the tours; and to recuperate if required. This time will add to our understanding of the Greek culture.

Estimated Time in Athens

Potentially, each of us is looking at four tours, one each day? If we take two tours on one day that means only three days. However, to allow free time to explore the city I think four days would be the minimum.

For the moment, we’ll allocate four days to explore Athens.

Next Post

In my next post, I’ll present of research about either Meteora or the Greek Islands. As mentioned previously, our goal is to visit Meteora (and perhaps Delphi) and an island as a part of our time in Greece.

Postscript

A tour operator left a comment on an earlier post pointing to their website: Enjoy Greece Tours.

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