Piraeus is the port city within the Greater Athens, where you can get ferries to the islands. We spent quite a lot of time there on our three week trip, so I thought it would be a good idea to note the good and useful places we went to in the area.
We were in Piraeus mid-September to early October 2022 so all my notes are based around my experiences at that time. Please do check any dates/opening times/locations etc. if you’re planning your own trip – things change! Links are to websites if I can find useful ones, or Google Maps locations if not, so you can see where they are. Please also note this post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!
You can read my notes on the places we recommend below, plus you can take a look at my more general notes on travelling in Greece: Athens, the Peloponnese and a few islands, too:
My recommendations in Piraeus
Travel:
Metro: Piraeus is well connected to the centre of Athens by the metro
BEAT: an app for ‘hailing’ taxis
Ferryhopper: Pre-book ferries from Piraeus to the islands. We got the app so we could check in online in advance (48 – 2 hours before departure)
Drink:
Bridge Coffee Roasters: good coffee with seating away from the crowds.
Gregory’s: nice coffee chain with seating also slightly away from the crowds.
Eat:
Bread Factory: we had good sandwiches from here and the cakes looked amazing (but it also looked a bit complicated to order things in glass cases in the centre of the shop)
Stay:
Achillion Hotel*: walking distance from the port, clean, quiet, fairly spacious and a comfortable bed. Their own descriptions are very self deprecating so we hadn’t expected much but it was just what we needed for a good night’s sleep after a long ferry trip and before a flight the next day.
Other useful things:
Lidl: good sized supermarket with lots of choice and the only place I found suncream.
We went to another supermarket on the other side, near the Gregory’s mentioned above, but I can’t find it on Google maps. It had lots of great products and we got a couple of picnics from there.
Toilet: a surprisingly very clean loo at that end of the port (near gate E3 – I can’t link precisely to it but it’s within the port, roughly in line with this bus stop outside.
Although we didn’t visit Piraeus for an extended period of time as a destination in itself, we ended up spending quite a bit of time there and once we’d figured things out found there were plenty of options for food, drink, shopping and interesting looking places (a lot of churches), so there’s plenty to explore.
Notes on Travel is a blog by photographer Jayne Lloyd, noting the things I found useful to know when I was visiting Piraeus in September and October 2022 as part of a 3 week trip around Athens, the Peloponnese and a few islands. I’ve tried to be accurate but please do check for up-to-date information before going as things are always changing! I apologise for any mistakes, please do let me know if you have more recent info.
* This post contains some affiliate links, indicated with a ‘*’ – if you click them and decide to buy something I may receive a small cut of the payment, but it won’t cost you more. Thank you!