Acropolis Athens Visitor Guide: Tickets, Hours and Entrances

You need a timed ticket, a slot, the right gate and shoes that grip marble. The rest of a visit follows from those four. Weighing up a skip the line acropolis of athens tour? Start with what the ticket skips, and what it does not.

The Acropolis in one paragraph

The Acropolis is a natural fortress of rock, 160 m high, and it is reached only from the west side. People lived on it from the Neolithic period, a Mycenaean wall ringed it in the 13th century BC, and from the 8th century BC it was the sanctuary of Athena. What you walk among today was built in the second half of the 5th century BC under Pericles: the Propylaea, the gateway you enter through; the Parthenon; the Erechtheion with its porch of maidens; and the small Temple of Athena Nike on its bastion. On the south slope stand the Theatre of Dionysus and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

Tickets and what they cost

The Ministry of Culture sells one ticket for the rock and its slopes: €30 full and €15 reduced. Buy it online from the Ministry's e-ticketing service, tickets.hh.gr, or at the ticket offices on site. Online, you choose a date and a time slot. The ticket is scanned once, so if you leave the Acropolis or the south slope, you cannot come back in on it.

A tour's price is a different thing. Many tours quote a “from” fare without the €30 ticket and sell it as a dearer option, and some never include it. Before you pay, read whether your option says the ticket is in the fare, so you do not buy it twice.

What a skip-the-line ticket skips

It skips the ticket office. That is all. There is no separate skip-the-line entrance at the Acropolis, whatever a tour's title says, and every visitor goes through the same security check at the gate. One operator warns of waits of 30 minutes or more there in peak season. Operators also say that timed tickets expire within minutes of the slot, and one ticket listing allows entry only within 15 minutes either side of it. So arrive at your gate 15 to 20 minutes early, and treat the slot as a start time, not a window.

Opening hours

The Acropolis opens at 08:00 every day it is open. In autumn it closes a little earlier every fortnight, as the days shorten, so check the row for your date before you book a late slot.

It is closed on 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, Easter Sunday, and 25 and 26 December. On Good Friday it opens from 12:00 to 17:00, and on Holy Saturday from 08:30 to 15:30. The North Slope keeps shorter hours, 08:30 to 15:30. Nobody enters the rock after the last slot, so a tour sold for the evening is a late-afternoon visit. The golden hour before closing is covered on Acropolis night tours.

Which entrance to use

Getting there

The nearest metro station is Acropolis. From its exit, walk along Dionysiou Areopagitou, the street under the south slope, to the South entrance, or carry on round the rock to the Main Entrance. From Monastiraki station you can walk up through Plaka or through the Ancient Agora. From the cruise port at Piraeus, operators give 30 to 40 minutes by road, depending on traffic. Every tour meeting point, street by street, is on the Acropolis map and meeting points.

What you can and cannot bring

• No food or drink on the site. The Ministry's operating rules prohibit it. Operators still advise carrying water for the climb in hot weather, so drink before the gate and keep the bottle in your bag.
• Small bags only. Small backpacks and handbags are allowed in. Large luggage is not, and the cloakroom does not accept it either.
• No pets, except dogs accompanying people with disabilities. No smoking and no litter.
• Walking shoes. The Ministry recommends them, and the marble paths are worn smooth. Tours describe about a mile of uphill and downhill and around 200 steps.
• A hat and sunscreen. The plateau is exposed rock with very little shade.

Toilets and access

The toilets inside the archaeological site are under renovation. Use the permanent restrooms to the right of the Main Entrance, or the portable ones to its left, before you go in. Accessible toilets are at the Information Centre at 18–20 Dionysiou Areopagitou, 50 m east of the South Slope entrance. The lift can be out of service and does not run in strong wind, so if you depend on it, check the Ministry's notices on the day and phone ahead.

When to go

Early or late. The site opens at 08:00, and one visitor who went in at 08:00 found it much quieter than from 09:00 onward. Another recommends a slot at 17:00 or 18:00 in summer for the evening light, rather than an early start. In the middle of a summer day the plateau is hot and bright, so if that is your only slot, bring water and take the climb slowly. How the seasons change a visit is on Acropolis weather.

Frequently asked before you go