Recommendations for car rental from Athens Airport

On 2011-07-03 22:25:49 -0500, poldy said:

In article 2011070312581922832-stephedanospam@maccom,
Dan Stephenson wrote:

On 2011-06-25 07:57:44 -0500, Alexander Arnakis said:

BTW, having a mobile phone in Greece is a must, and is cheap. Just
bring your own GSM phone and get a local prepaid SIM card from
Vodafone or Wind. Mobile telephony is one of the few things that work
really well in Greece. (The SIM cards can be "topped off" at any
kiosk.) If you are a couple and have two phones, and get the SIM cards
from the same company, calls between you are free. Also, all incoming
calls are free. You get charged for air time only if *you* place the
call.

I have CDMA Verizon iPhone 4; I hear the iPhone 5 due in October will
have both CDMA and GSM. If so, it might be worth getting for overseas
use. The Google Translate app is JUST AMAZING. Now I have a chance at
the locals understanding me when I inquire on the location of ancient
ruins. I can pre-save a number of translations, but anything
on-the-fly needs the network.

Unless you plan to use mobile data, you can just use the iPhone 4 in
Wifi mode.

Sure, such as w/ Skype. But I will not be in wifi outside the hotel.

How will Google Translate handle the Greek alphabet? Or are you talking
about letting it speak the translation for you?

It does both! Check it out. Google's web-page version does both too.
It is amazing. And it does Latin, too! heh

--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-07-04 08:11:45 -0500, Martin said:

On Mon, 4 Jul 2011 07:40:31 -0500, Dan Stephenson
wrote:


It does both! Check it out. Google's web-page version does both too.
It is amazing. And it does Latin, too! heh

For "when in Rome ..."? :-)

How accurate are Google Maps for Greece?

When I say Google Maps, I am referring to the Satellite view, when I am
hunting down ruins. I am also really looking forward to the next
generation of aerial/satellite photography, with something that has
higher resolution and better hires coverage. THEN I am really going to
go crazy.

This approach also works very well with locating hill forts and such as
that, in the British Isles.


I still think Kalamate is a better place to start. :-)
Did you buy a Blue Guide to Greece, we found that the best book for
locating ancient sites. We also missed Sparta. The weather was
terrible and we gave up before we got there.

No, I actually had no guide other than having read HB Cotterill's
"Ancient Greece" several times (and a thick motoring atlas I picked up
at the first petrol station). I picked it up in the Colosseum
bookshop, of all places, back in my 2002 grand tour. When I got to the
part about the Messenians being tranported across the gulf of Corinth
to their new home -- I was on the ferry making the EXACT SAME PASSAGE.
I am not kidding you. I read that portion of the text, and looked up,
and BAM! there I was, 2,500 years ago, making the same passage.
Totally cool. (on further thought, I did pick up a history book on the
Peloponnese while I was there, with a great map in the back)

I had the Blue Guide to Venice and it was clearly the best guidebook
for Venice. It liked its maps too, as I recall. I will look for the
Blue Guide for Greece. JJ Norwich's history on the Venetian republic
was very good too and I read it while vacationing there some years
back. I think people find as they travel more and more, it is less
important to get hotel or restaurant recommendations that are one to
several years old, than to get a good history or other description of
what it is you want to see. The history of a place does not change.
This is why "Ancient Greece" or History of Venice or Strolling Through
Istanbul are such incredible GUIDE books. I can go to tripadvisor.com
for accomodation recommendations.

On Sparta. I only went there back in 2009, as a day trip from
Monemvasia to look for a iPod because mine died and I needed its drive
space for photos. Crawled into Sparta in my brand new Porsche Carrera
4S and its CRAZY traffic, and wind around for seemingly forever before
I find a cramped car park where I hide my baby. Then I walked up and
down the main street visiting electronics shops: no iPod Classic, the
kind with the hard drive. But not all was lost. I visited a temple of
Apollo on the way back, under excavation where soda cans were used as
grid markers, and a big open tholos tomb in the rain. Wow, Greek mud
is sticky. Finally back in Geyfra, the town on the mainland opposite
Monemvasia, my hotel proprietor suggested a little shop in town, and
while they too had no iPod Classic, they did have 250GB USB drives for
sale. Not cheap, but I was able to offload photos from my computer
hard drive. I had 200GB of photos by the time I got back home. Cool.
What great memories.

I think outside modern Sparta, there are a few ancient ruins, most
Roman but some old Greek too. Not much, too, so I've also heard. I
think the Romans did build city walls, though, and there are some
traces of those.

--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 07/03/2011 08:00 PM, Dan Stephenson wrote:
On 2011-06-23 12:36:15 -0500, Tom P said:

On 06/19/2011 03:24 AM, Dan Stephenson wrote:
Hello, in the Fall I will travel to Greece, flying into Athens and
heading to the Pelopponese by car, for maybe 10 days.

There are several car rental places at the airport: Avis, Budget, Hertz,
National/Alamo and Sixt.

Can anyone recommend one more than the rest? I wouldn't be buying the
high-dollar collision damage waiver.

Thanks,

I can't speak for Athens, but what you might want to consider are
- does the company have an on-airport depot or do you have to wait for
the courtesy bus and even worse, find the depot again when you return
the car. Off-airport depots are a lot cheaper, but driving round at
night in the back streets of some industry park looking for the depot
while the time for your check-in ticks away is no fun.

That is a good point. Sometimes "airport" car hire is something
off-site, though somewhat nearby.

Hey I just said "car hire" instead of "car rental", without thinking
about that. I'm already getting in the travel mindset! whoo hoo!


- do the airline and car rental company have a big fly&drive deal, in
which case you may be standing in line for hours with all the other
pax that booked fly&drive.

What is fly&drive? and if I made a reservation -- I would expect the car
to be there

Some airlines or tour operators offer packages or special rates with
specific car rental companies. The effect is that even if only 10% of
the passengers on a 200 seat plane have booked this deal, then they will
all arrive at the car rental desk at exactly the same time - and you
probably know how long it takes just to get one customer serviced at a
car rental desk.

On 2011-07-03, Mike Lane wrote:
Dan Stephenson wrote on Jul 3, 2011:

I will have to look into this, thanks for the tip. I would also like
to avoid the hassle of getting to and from Pieraeus from the airport,
but the ferry time might be competitive with the drive time.

To me the time taken is not important - I actually enjoy the travelling. What
I don't enjoy is driving through the surroundings of airports and large towns
like Athens.

Does being on a bus make those areas more pleasant?

Getting to Piraeus is no hassle. You get on a bus at the airport and get off
at the harbour

Jesper Lauridsen wrote on Jul 5, 2011:

On 2011-07-03, Mike Lane wrote:
Dan Stephenson wrote on Jul 3, 2011:

I will have to look into this, thanks for the tip. I would also like
to avoid the hassle of getting to and from Pieraeus from the airport,
but the ferry time might be competitive with the drive time.

To me the time taken is not important - I actually enjoy the travelling.
What
I don't enjoy is driving through the surroundings of airports and large
towns
like Athens.

Does being on a bus make those areas more pleasant?


No, but to get to Piraeus the bus goes down to the coast avoiding Athens, and
someone else is driving. The route to the Peloponnese by road involves a far
greater distance through ghastly urban sprawl.

--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire
mike_lane at mac dot com

On 2011-07-05 18:08:25 -0500, Mike Lane said:

No, but to get to Piraeus the bus goes down to the coast avoiding Athens, and
someone else is driving. The route to the Peloponnese by road involves a far
greater distance through ghastly urban sprawl.

Not true, there is a big motorway that avoids all that mess. This is
the appeal of renting from the airport directly. Like when i was
scared of driving in Palermo; I took the bus into the city from the
airport, visited on foot, then took the bus back to the airport to get
the car. by the end, though, I was cool with italian driving. well,
not 'cool', but not afraid anymore. I would have to wait for Greece to
get that back. :-)
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

On 2011-07-05 08:28:14 -0500, Tom P said:

Some airlines or tour operators offer packages or special rates with
specific car rental companies. The effect is that even if only 10% of
the passengers on a 200 seat plane have booked this deal, then they
will all arrive at the car rental desk at exactly the same time - and
you probably know how long it takes just to get one customer serviced
at a car rental desk.

Ah so my reservation will still be there, just that the line may be long.

Well fortunately I pack extremely light and usually get to such places
before everyone else!
--
Dan Stephenson
http://web.mac.com/stepheda
Travel pages for Europe and the U.S.A. (and New Zealand too)

Thank you martin for your 30 year old memories

"tim...." a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion :
...


"Martin" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 22:12:02 -0400, Alexander Arnakis
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Jun 2011 20:24:52 -0500, Dan Stephenson
wrote:

Hello, in the Fall I will travel to Greece, flying into Athens and
heading to the Pelopponese by car, for maybe 10 days.

There are several car rental places at the airport: Avis, Budget,
Hertz, National/Alamo and Sixt.

Can anyone recommend one more than the rest? I wouldn't be buying the
high-dollar collision damage waiver.

I would avoid the high-price rental chains found at airports.
Independent rental agencies in smaller towns are much cheaper. Plus,
you don't want to navigate the Athens metropolitan area by car if you
don't have to.

Here's what I would do in your situation:

Take the express bus from the airport to Syntagma. Cross the street
and take the Metro to the Larissis train station. Take the next
"Proastiako" train to Corinth. Rent your car in Corinth. (This is a
cheap and convenient route.)

You are taking no more luggage than each person can carry/drag in one
"lift," right?

But, bus transportation is good throughout the Peloponnese. If it were
me, I'd take busses in the Peloponnese and reserve the cars for places
like Crete or Halkidiki.

All this assumes that you don't run into strikes and/or riots. In
Greece these days, you have to have a Plan B for everything. That's
why it's not a good idea to make car rental reservations (or
reservations for anything, for that matter) too far in advance.

That sounds like very good advice.
There's also a train route that goes part of the way down the west
coast. .

Not at the moment, there isn't. :-(

There is a station at Olympia

But not with any trains

tim

"Mike Lane" wrote in message
dia.com...
Jesper Lauridsen wrote on Jul 5, 2011:

On 2011-07-03, Mike Lane wrote:
Dan Stephenson wrote on Jul 3, 2011:

I will have to look into this, thanks for the tip. I would also like
to avoid the hassle of getting to and from Pieraeus from the airport,
but the ferry time might be competitive with the drive time.

To me the time taken is not important - I actually enjoy the travelling.
What
I don't enjoy is driving through the surroundings of airports and large
towns
like Athens.

Does being on a bus make those areas more pleasant?


No, but to get to Piraeus the bus goes down to the coast avoiding Athens,

Whilst it may go along the coast, it doesn't avoid what most people would
consider as Athens. About 80% of the bus route is through urban sprawl.

and
someone else is driving. The route to the Peloponnese by road involves a
far
greater distance through ghastly urban sprawl.

OTOH 90% of the new motorway goes nowhere near any urban sprawl

tim

M@gd@ wrote on Jul 6, 2011:

On Mon, 4 Jul 2011 09:28:03 +0100, in rec.travel.europe, Mike Lane
arranged some electrons, so they looked
like this:

... tim.... wrote on Jul 3, 2011:
...
...
... "Dan Stephenson" wrote in message
... news:2011070312452797074-stephedanospam@maccom...
... On 2011-06-24 16:39:16 -0500, Martin said:
...
...
... ATM skyscanner is showing flights from London to Kalamata
...
... Again you assume somebody is flying from London.
...
... Actually I will travel through London, as I intend to spend a few
days
... there, to visit the British Museum again, and to visit more
out-of-the-way
... places. I hear the Mayor is going to create a tourist scheme where
you
... can visit along the Thames waterline to see some historical sights
that
... have been blocked off from normal access. Anyone know more about
this?
...
... But on the original suggestion: going through Athens has cost and
... logistical advantages.... I will into Kalamata, indeed, but the
hardest
... part of the driving is about the same, since until Tripoli the
driving is
... super-easy on the motorway. I don't suppose anybody knows if the
bypass
... is finished yet?
...
... Both my maps show the by-pass as completed, but only one shows the
road
... through the mountains to Kalamata as complete.
...
... But if you're going to Sparta you won't need that bit
...
...
... There's no particular reason to visit Sparta itself. It's a small modern

town
... with very little (apart from the name) to connect it to the ancient
... city-state. The Spartans didn't go in for building much, it seems - too
busy
... war-mongering I suppose.
...
... I stayed there after visiting Mystra which isn't far away.

Not even a museum worth a visit?


I believe there's a small one with a few bits and pieces on display, but as I
say, nothing really worth a special visit.


--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire
mike_lane at mac dot com