Things to see and do Greece

Timetable

In high season, the opening hours of the main sites and museums in Athens, Thessaloniki or Delphi are generally harmonized. Between April¹ and October 31, they are open from 8am and close around 8pm. The rest of the year, they often close at 4pm. In any case, and especially in summer, we can't recommend enough to be at the opening to avoid the crowd. But in other places of visit, especially in smaller museums or places of worship, the opening hours are a regular source of anxiety for the authors of guidebooks on Greece: they change constantly, sometimes several times a year, and often, above all, they don't even really exist. One thing to remember: stay flexible! A museum that is closed during opening hours is commonplace, especially on the smaller islands where crowds are limited. Off season, in remote sites everything is closed!

To be booked

To avoid queuing at the entrance, try to book some entrances online(https://etickets.tap.gr) such as for the Acropolis or the ancient Agora in Athens or for the site of Messene in the Peloponnese.

Budget & Tips

Your museum budget will often be divided by two (like the price of many admissions) if you travel between November and the end of March. Otherwise, look out for the free days on the sites: March 6 (Melina Mercouri day), June 5 (Environment day), April 18 (Historical Monuments day), May 18 (Museums day), the last weekend in September (European Heritage day) and especially the first Sunday of each month, between November¹ and March 31.
Another interesting "plan": there is a grouped ticket (30 € in high season or 15 € the rest of the year), valid for 5 days, to visit the Acropolis and the Archaeological Park. This includes the theater of Dionysus, the Ancient Agora (with the Hephaestheion and the museum of the Ancient Agora), the site of Keramikos (with the museum of Keramikos), the Roman Agora (with the library of Hadrian and the Tower of the Winds), the Olympeion and the archaeological site of Lykeion.

Finally, you should know that many major sites, with rather expensive tickets, are free for children under 18.

Main events

Easter (in April or May, depending on the year) is undoubtedly the most striking and warmest popular Greek festival, which gives another dimension to many religious monuments that come alive with ceremonies. In Athens and Thessaloniki, you should also look out for the numerous festivals, especially of cinema.

Guided tours

Greece (and Athens in particular) offers tours off the beaten track (see www.alternativeathens.com/fr/ for example). To benefit from the services of a private French-speaking guide, you can contact the Association of Qualified Guides (+30 210 32 20 090, www.tourist-guides.gr). It has 1,500 members who work throughout Greece and cover 28 languages... including French. Finally, we add our favorite for Panagiotis Grigoriou, ethnologist and historian, who proposes to discover Athens in a different way thanks to the association La Grèce autrement (https://greceautrement.fr).

Smokers

All outdoor public spaces are smokers, whether they are parks, beaches or even archaeological sites (but not all of them, especially in the middle of summer to avoid the risk of fire). On the other hand, the interior of museums, churches and monasteries is completely non-smoking.

Tourist traps

The risks are reduced because false guides, if they are controlled without accreditation, incur very heavy fines.

What's very local

In Greece, May^1st, Protomagia, is not only a labor day, it also honors spring, which is why the doors and windows of houses and buildings are decorated with wreaths of flowers. These will be burned collectively on Saint John's Day, June 24.