Travel

Trains provide a nice way to travel around mainland Greece. Trains don't go to that many places, but for the destinations they do reach, trains are far superior to the wretched Greek bus system. The or (Organismos Sidirodromon Ellados or OSE), the Hellenic Railways Organization, operates all inter-city passenger rail service in Greece.

Since the Greek economy is based primarily on strikes and graffiti, there is a really good chance that you will arrive at the Athens airport and find that both the Metro and the bus system are not running.

In that case, you will can take two rides on the or Proastiakos suburban train to get within hiking distance of central Athens.

or Proastiakos suburban train.

Let's start by going to Athens' Larissa train station.

Athens has a plan to open a brand new train station, oddly named the Central Train Station despite its location twenty kilometers north of the city center, at Arhanon.

Yes, I realize that the current year is 2015, but there are still a lot of Greek projects that they hope to finish, some day, in preparation for the 2004 Olympic Games.

Greece hopes to open this new station before the 2004 Olympic Games.

The Athens Metro now has a station at the Larissa train station, let's take the Metro!

This is the Monastiraki station, in the Plaka district below the Acropolis. This is on the #1 Line. We will take it for one stop, to Plateas Omonias, where we will change to Line #2 for two stops.

The line through the Monastiraki station is open to the sky in places. This line runs south to Athens' port of Piraeus, and much of the line from here south is above ground.

Monastiraki station in the Athens Metro system.

The train arrives at the Monastiraki station.

The stray dogs in Athens, like those in most cities, are very mellow. The belligerent ones tend to get eliminated by the authorities and the local people.