Visiting the Acropolis in Athens: Tickets, Hours and Tips

A full ticket to the Acropolis of Athens costs €30 ($32, £26) and a reduced ticket €15 ($16, £13), the site opens at 08:00 every day it is open, and entry is by timed slot booked for a specific date and time. Buy from tickets.hh.gr, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture’s own ticket service, allow about two hours on the hill, and go early or late rather than in the middle of the day.

I climbed it on a warm October afternoon, a few hours after landing in Athens, and stood at the bottom of the rock half expecting the sky to cloud over and a lightning bolt to land at my feet. It is the Acropolis of Ancient Greece, you know? The moment passed, I went through the gate, and within five minutes I was photographing marble like everyone else, trying to catch the feeling you never quite manage to recreate in writing afterwards. Nowhere else in Greece has done that to me quite so fast.

Visiting the Acropolis: all you need to know

Visiting the Acropolis takes a ticket booked for a time slot, a walk up a steep and polished rock, and about two hours at the top. Everything below is the practical part: what it costs, when it opens, which entrance to use and what to carry.

Acropolis admission fee and tickets

The Acropolis admission fee is €30 ($32, £26) for a full ticket and €15 ($16, £13) for a reduced ticket, which is half price. The ticket covers the hill and its slopes, so the Theatre of Dionysus and the walk below the south side are included.

Buy from tickets.hh.gr, the official Hellenic Heritage service run by the Ministry of Culture and ODAP. That is the only channel selling at the government price, and its tickets carry a compulsory time slot. Three things about those tickets are worth knowing before you buy.

• Timed entry: entry is valid for the date and time slot you chose, and last admission is shortly before closing.
• Changes: changes are allowed up to 2 hours before your slot, twice per ticket, and tickets are not refundable.
• Documents: reduced and free tickets are checked at the gate, so carry the photo ID or paperwork that proves your category.

Under-18s, EU students and several other categories enter free or at the reduced rate, and the Ministry of Culture publishes the full eligibility list on its own site. The site is also free to everyone on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September and 28 October, which are the days it is busiest.

Older guides describe a €30 combination ticket covering the Acropolis and six other Athens sites for five days. Greece reorganised its state ticketing, and the official store now sells the Acropolis as a timed-entry ticket of its own, so check what multi-site option exists on tickets.hh.gr before you plan a week of sightseeing around one.

Acropolis opening hours

The Acropolis opens at 08:00 all year and closes at 20:00 in summer and 17:00 in winter. Summer runs 1 April to 31 October, winter 1 November to 31 March, and last entrance is half an hour before closing.

Autumn closing time steps down as the days shorten rather than dropping in one go. The Ministry of Culture publishes the sequence below.

The site closes completely on 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Orthodox Easter Sunday, 25 December and 26 December. On Good Friday it opens 12:00 to 17:00 and on Holy Saturday 08:30 to 15:30. It also shuts at short notice in extreme heat, which happens in Athens in July and August, so check the Ministry of Culture’s page for the site on the morning you go.

When to go

Go early in the morning or in the last two hours before closing, and go in spring or autumn rather than summer. The middle of the day is both the busiest and the hottest part of a hill with almost no shade.

The five timing decisions that make the biggest difference are listed below.

1. Visit in spring or autumn. Visit in April, May, September or October for warm weather without July heat or winter rain. I went in October and had the ticket line almost to myself at lunchtime, which felt the way the Luxor Temple in Egypt had felt: glad not to be using my elbows, sorry that more people were not seeing it.
2. Go early in the day. Go for the first slot at 08:00 if you can face it, then walk straight to the Parthenon and ignore everything else on the way up. You get the busiest building at its quietest and can double back afterwards.
3. Or go late in the day. Go in the last two hours instead if mornings are not happening. Cruise passengers head back to Piraeus during the afternoon, which leaves the hill calmer and cooler before closing.
4. Check it is open before you go. Check the Ministry of Culture page for closures, because the site shuts on several public holidays and during extreme heat.
5. Avoid going in the rain. Avoid the climb in wet weather, as thousands of years of footfall have polished the rock into something close to marble underfoot and the paths get genuinely slippery.

How to get onto the archaeological site

Get onto the archaeological site through one of two entrances: the main west entrance below the Areopagus, or the quieter south-east entrance on Dionysiou Areopagitou by the Theatre of Dionysus. Both lead to the same rock, and only one of them has the queue.

The Acropolis sits in the middle of the city, just south of the Ancient Agora. Thissio and Monastiraki metro stations are both walkable and the Plaka district runs right up to the rock’s north-east foot, but Acropoli station on Line 2 is the useful one: it comes out next to the Acropolis Museum, a short walk from the south-east entrance.

The main entrance on the west is where the tour groups and the coaches arrive, and summer waits there run long. The south-east entrance is less used, and the walk up from it takes you past the Theatre of Dionysus with a view over the Odeon of Herodes Atticus before you reach the Propylaia. Take that one.

Either way, expect a steady uphill walk on rough, uneven, worn-smooth ground. Most people take 15 to 20 minutes from the gate to the top. The rock itself stands 160 m (525 ft) above the city.

There is a lift for visitors with reduced mobility, reached from a separate entrance north of the central west entrance along a 350 m (1,148 ft) route, ending on the plateau north of the Erechtheion. It is out of service from time to time and does not run in strong winds or severe weather, so call the Acropolis guards’ office on +30 213 131 7762 before you count on it.

What to pack and wear for your Acropolis visit

Pack water, sun cover and shoes with grip, and eat before you go through the gate. Eating and drinking on the archaeological site is against the site rules, and so are large luggage and professional photography.

• Water, since there are fountains on the site but they get busy.
• A sun hat, because there is almost no shade on the rock.
• Sunscreen and sunglasses.
• Shoes with grip, as the terrain is uneven and the stone is polished smooth in places.
• Photo ID, if you are claiming a reduced or free ticket.

What is the Acropolis of Athens?

The Acropolis of Athens is the group of temples and monuments standing on the flat-topped rock in the centre of the city. The name says what it is: akron means the high point and polis means the city, so an acropolis is the city’s high place, and Athens has the famous one.

People have lived on the rock since the Neolithic period, but the buildings you climb up to see belong to the 5th century BC, commissioned under Pericles during the Golden Age of Athens. Restoration has run continuously since 1975, when the Acropolis Restoration Service was set up to take the monuments apart and put them back with the pieces correctly placed, so some scaffolding is a permanent feature rather than bad luck. Do not climb on or touch the stones.

Athens has long capped building heights in the centre, partly so that the view of the rock is not the property of whoever can afford the top floor. It is why the city below you looks so flat and white from up there.

Read a little before you go. There are information boards around the site, but they are hard to reach when it is busy, and an audio guide, a phone app or a guided tour of the Acropolis will tell you more than the signage will.

What to see on the Acropolis

The Acropolis holds four buildings from the Periclean plan, the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion, plus older foundations on the rock and two theatres on the slopes. Pericles intended the whole thing as a monument to Athena and an advertisement for Athens, and he spent accordingly, hiring the leading sculptors and architects in Greece along with thousands of painters, woodcarvers and labourers.

The complex splits into two parts: the rock itself, and the slopes to the north and south. It is very easy to lose an hour longer than you planned up here.

Parthenon

The Parthenon is the temple to Athena Parthenos that sits at the highest point of the rock, and it is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece. Work on it began in 447 BC and the structure was finished within about a decade, with the sculpture taking a few years more.

So, Acropolis or Parthenon? The Acropolis is the hill. The Parthenon is the temple on it. Its design has been copied worldwide, and although it reads as a set of straight lines and right angles, there are almost none in it: the columns lean inward, the floor curves upward and every block was cut to fit one specific neighbour.

When I visited in October 2014 the Parthenon and the Propylaia were both wrapped in scaffolding with cranes standing in the interior. That is normal. The restoration is a decades-long job and something is usually under wraps.

Propylaia

The Propylaia is the monumental gateway on the western side of the rock, and it is the first thing you walk through if you come up from the main entrance. Even half hidden behind scaffolding it works, with white marble columns either side of the way in.

Propylaia is the general Greek word for the grand gates of a city, normally marking the line between the everyday part of town and the sacred part. This one was built to impress people arriving for the Panathenaic procession, and it still lands on visitors 2,500 years later.

Temple of Athena Nike

The Temple of Athena Nike is the small temple perched on the bastion to your right as you come through the Propylaia. It is the smallest building on the rock and one of the most visible, because the cliff it stands on puts it at eye level from the approach.

It was built on the spot where earlier temples to the same goddess had stood before they were destroyed. Like almost everything up here, it is Pentelic marble, quarried at Mount Pentelicus north-east of the city. That stone is bright white with a trace of iron in it, and the iron has oxidised over the centuries into the warm honey colour that makes the Acropolis worth seeing at sunrise and sunset.

Erechtheion

The Erechtheion is the irregular temple on the north side of the rock, named after Erechtheus, a mythical king of Athens. It was built in the last decades of the 5th century BC to house an ancient wooden statue of Athena, and it doubled as a shrine to Erechtheus, Poseidon and Hephaistos.

Six draped female figures called Caryatids hold up its southern porch. The ones you see are copies. Five of the originals are in the Acropolis Museum a few hundred metres downhill, and the sixth was removed by Lord Elgin at the start of the 19th century and is in the British Museum in London.

The building stands on the spot where Poseidon and Athena were said to have competed for the city. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and a saltwater spring appeared; Athena struck it and an olive tree grew. There is an olive tree there today, planted in the 20th century.

Old Temple of Athena

The Old Temple of Athena is the set of ruined foundations lying between the Erechtheion and the Parthenon. It was a large archaic temple to Athena, destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC and never rebuilt.

What survives is the outline, so you can read the inner rooms and passages straight off the ground. The foundations were excavated by the German archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld, which is why they are often called the Dörpfeld foundations.

Pandroseion

The Pandroseion is the small sanctuary beside the Erechtheion, dedicated to Pandrosos, a daughter of Cecrops I, the founding king of Athens. Only its outline remains.

The sanctuary held an altar to Zeus Herkeios, protector of the household hearth, alongside the shrine to Pandrosos itself. Some scholars think sacred snakes were kept in this corner of the rock.

Brauroneion

The Brauroneion is the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia, in the south-west corner of the rock near the Propylaia. Only the foundations are visible now.

Artemis Brauronia was the protector of pregnant women and of childbirth, and the sanctuary was where women brought offerings of woollen and silk clothing, draping them over her statue when they wanted her help.

Theater of Dionysus

The Theater of Dionysus is the stone theatre cut into the southern slope, and it is often called the birthplace of Western drama. You walk straight past it if you come up from the south-east entrance, which is one more reason to use that gate.

The word theatre comes from the Greek for a place of viewing, and this one belonged to Dionysus, god of wine and of the stage. Estimates of its capacity run to around 17,000. The audiences who sat here watched the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides when they were new.

Viewpoint of the Acropolis and Athens

The viewpoint on the eastern end of the rock gives you the whole city and the rest of the Acropolis in one look. You will find it by the enormous Greek flag flying above it, which is there for a reason.

In May 1941, during the German occupation, two young Athenians named Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climbed the rock at night and took down the swastika flying over it. The act is widely counted as the start of the Greek resistance, and a plaque beside the flagpole tells the story.

Odeon of Herodes Atticus

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is the steep stone theatre on the southern slope, built in the AD 160s by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife Regilla. It seats about 5,000 people and it is still in use.

You look down into it from the path rather than walking around inside it. The way in is a ticket to a performance: the Athens Epidaurus Festival stages concerts and ancient drama here through the summer. Athenians call it the Herodeon. Its chequered stage floor looks like the perfect place to ballroom dance, not that I can, but I am willing to learn.

Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum costs €20 ($21, £17) for general admission and €10 ($11, £9) reduced, and it is a separate ticket from the archaeological site. It opened in 2009 at the foot of the south slope, next to Acropoli metro station.

Its opening hours run longer than the site’s, and they differ by day. In summer, 1 April to 31 October, it opens 09:00 to 20:00 from Tuesday to Sunday, until 22:00 on Friday and only until 17:00 on Monday. In winter, 1 November to 31 March, it opens 09:00 to 17:00 Monday to Thursday, until 22:00 on Friday and until 20:00 at weekends. Entry is free on 6 March, 25 March, 18 May and 28 October.

Buy tickets on the museum’s own site, theacropolismuseum.gr. The museum has published a warning about a copycat site using the same content on a .org domain, so check the address bar. Reduced and free tickets are only issued at the ticket desk, on production of documents.

Inside are the sculptures taken off the rock for safekeeping, including five of the six original Caryatids, and the top-floor Parthenon gallery is built to the exact dimensions of the temple so the frieze can be shown in its real order, with the Acropolis itself through the glass. Part of an excavated ancient neighbourhood lies under the building and is included in the ticket. The café on the upper floor has the view. Half-day tours that pair the museum with the site, such as this Acropolis tour with an optional Ancient Agora add-on, save you working out the order yourself.

Guided tours of the Acropolis

A guided tour of the Acropolis is worth it if you want the buildings explained while you look at them, because the on-site signage is thin and crowded. Guided visits also come with entry, which spares you the timed-slot arithmetic.

The Acropolis tours Wonderful Wanderings has linked to over the years are listed below.

• A private guided tour with skip-the-line entry, for a guide to yourselves.
• A full-day mythology tour of the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum, which covers both in one booking.
• A small-group guided walking tour of the Acropolis, with skip-the-line entry.
• A skip-the-line ticket with a smartphone audio tour, if you would rather walk round at your own pace.

Those four are not everything that runs. For the rest, GetYourGuide lists the full range of Acropolis tours. Current prices, times and availability are in the panel below.

How to get to Athens

Get to Athens on a direct flight, since the city is served non-stop from across Europe and much of the world. Compare fares and set an alert on the route with Trip.com, which covers the low-cost carriers as well as the national ones.

Athens International Airport sits about 33 km (20.5 mi) east of the centre, and there are four ways in. Metro Line 3 runs from the terminal to Syntagma in roughly 40 minutes for a €9 ($10, £8) single, and you change at Syntagma onto Line 2 for Acropoli. The X95 express bus runs to Syntagma around the clock. Official taxis charge a fixed fare into the centre, posted at the rank.

The fourth way is to book the car before you land. Welcome Pickups puts a driver at arrivals with your name on a sign, cancellable up to 24 hours ahead, and it is paid for before you get there, which matters more than it sounds like it does after a long flight.

If you are coming to Athens as part of an island trip, ferries from Piraeus reach most of the Aegean. Check crossings and operators on Direct Ferries before you fix the order of your stops.

Where to stay in Athens

Stay in Makrigianni, Koukaki or Plaka if the Acropolis is your reason for coming, because all three put you within a 10-minute walk of an entrance. Makrigianni and Koukaki sit directly below the south slope beside the Acropolis Museum, Plaka wraps around the north-east foot of the rock, and Monastiraki and Thissio put you next to the Ancient Agora with the Parthenon on the skyline above the rooftops.

Boutique: Neratzia Rooms. Bright suites in strong colours in the middle of Athens, with the Acropolis Museum and most of the central sights within walking distance. Free WiFi, continental breakfast and city views. Check dates for Neratzia Rooms.

Chain: ibis Styles Athens Routes. A central, reliable, clean modern hotel with free parking, two restaurants, a bar and a fitness room. Rooms have air conditioning, desks and en-suite bathrooms. Check dates for ibis Styles Athens Routes.

Luxury: A77 Suites. Individually decorated suites with shuttered windows and wood-panelled ceilings, part of Small Luxury Hotels of the World, with breakfast delivered to the room. The rooftop suite has a private hot tub facing the Acropolis. Check dates for A77 Suites.

Those three cover the middle and the top of the range. For hostels, guesthouses and everything cheaper, run the dates through Booking.com and filter by the Acropolis on the map rather than by the district name, which is the quicker way to find the walkable ones. For apartments, I check Vrbo as well, since the selection in central Athens is large and a balcony with a view of the rock is not the luxury it sounds like.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from an October climb up the rock and from reading the Ministry of Culture’s own site page and ticket store line by line, and each one is a rule the older Athens guides have not caught up with.

1. Book a timed slot at tickets.hh.gr before you travel. A full ticket is €30 ($32, £26) and admits you once, on the date and at the hour you picked. You can move the slot up to 2 hours beforehand and only twice, and no ticket is refundable. The €30 seven-site combination ticket that older guides describe is not what the official store sells now.
2. A 20:00 closing time does not hold past the middle of September. The site steps its hours down through the autumn, closing at 19:30 to 15 September, 19:00 to the end of the month, 18:30 to 15 October and 18:00 after that, with last entry half an hour before. Arriving at 18:45 on 20 September gets you nothing but the view from the road.
3. Go in through the south-east gate on Dionysiou Areopagitou. It leads to the same rock as the main west entrance, it is the one the coaches do not use, and the walk up passes the Theatre of Dionysus and looks down on the Odeon of Herodes Atticus on the way.
4. Eat and drink before you go through the gate. Food and drink are against the site rules on the archaeological site, as are large luggage, pets other than assistance dogs and professional photography. Water is the exception you will want, and the fountains up there get busy.
5. Check the address bar before you buy museum tickets. The Acropolis Museum has warned that a copycat site runs its content on a .org domain. Its own address is theacropolismuseum.gr, admission is €20 full and €10 reduced, and reduced or free tickets are issued only at the desk against documents.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes in this post come from her October visit to the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum in Athens. The team covers Athens and the rest of Greece for independent travellers, including the guided tours, hotels, airport transfers and ferries worth booking, and updates this page when prices, opening hours and site rules change.