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The
Daily Gyro August 3, 2009 DCGreeks.com Mailbag: How much would it cost to go to Greece for 8 weeks? Dear The Guys @ DCGreeks.com: How much would it cost to go to Greece for 8 weeks? Due to your expertise I was hoping you will be able to shed some light on the subject. A little advice would go a long way right now. Thanks. Gratefully, Terry Dear Terry, For starters, I definitely wouldn’t call us or many Greek-Americans experts on the subject of how much it would cost to go to Greece for that long, despite the fact that most Greek-Americans won’t go for less than three weeks and typically can stay in Greece for up to five weeks or more. Many Greek-Americans, particularly those who still have family back in Greece, don’t consider, appreciate, or in some respects even incur the true cost of an extended stay in Greece. A trip to Greece is a priority bordering on an obligation and with that in mind many Greek Americans would spend the money without thinking about it, particularly not in advance. A trip that long for most Greek Americans would involve a least one or two extended stays with relatives without having to pay for a place to stay or meals, and might even leave with more money than they started with depending on which aunt they stayed with and how much extra money she gave for cabs, bus and Metro tickets. But in trying to answer your question from personal experience, you need to begin with the biggest upfront cost which can’t be really avoided or negotiated, which is taking a plane to get there. Running a search on a popular travel website however confirmed what we had been hearing from those who had been asking us why we weren’t going to Greece this summer – that airfare had dropped significantly this year from last year when we paid $1400 a ticket to go to Greece for the AHEPA Convention in July. Assuming leaving three weeks from today from DC and returning eight weeks later, you’re looking at airfare starting at about $668 roundtrip topping out at around $1,400 depending on the flight and airline. Surprisingly, a one stop flight on Olympic with a US carrier connection from Washington, DC runs about $960, but a two stop trip is a whopping $8972.00. We thought this was a mistake, until we actually tried booking the flight and saw a few itineraries in that $8000 range. So either a) Olympic is anticipating a strike for only the second leg of the flight, or b) Olympic is making you buy the whole plane. Arriving in Athens, you’re looking at about $170 a night for a good hotel like the Intercontinental in the Sygrou neighborhood in central Athens. (By contrast, the Grande Bretagne in Syntagma Square will run you about $384 a night.) These hotels will provide you great access to everything you need to see in Athens with a short Metro ride. A ticket into the Acropolis will cost you 12 Euro and is valid for other sites around the Acropolis for 7 days. Assuming you’re leaving Athens to hit any of the islands in the Aegean, you can still find hotels for around $40 a night on these islands. These aren’t hotels in the traditional sense but more villas or spare rooms that are touted by guys with signs once you arrive in port. With the outbreak of swine flu in Greece this summer, you may actually be looking for these types of situations versus a traditional multi-room hotel based on the amount of tourists and turnover that these larger properties see. Getting to the islands is the place where bargains are to be had, where a ferry boat trip from island to island can be under $15 to as much as about $80 depending on the distance. The one area in which Greece became noticeably more expensive particularly with the change over to the Euro was food at restaurants. We remember a simple gyro or souvlaki sandwich being 800 drachmas back in the day, now shooting up to about 2.50 Euros, almost $4 for sandwich that you used to get for under $2. Also, if you’re going for eight weeks, better over pack, because finding a self-service laundrymat, particularly in Athens, is an adventure in and of itself. We remember last year spending throwing handfuls of 1 Euro Coins into the one coin laundry in all of Athens, conveniently located at the foot of the Acropolis. (The dryers were ridiculously more expensive than the washers, and you needed a degree in engineering to figure out how to run either of the devices properly.) This answer probably barely answers your question, but the one variable to keep in mind is that a trip to Greece, at least one that’s worth remembering, is not about what can be planned and budgeted for in advance but what you make of it on the fly particularly when it comes to finding that deal on a room or making the choice between mixing it up with other tourists on the top deck of a slow ferry and avoiding getting overcharged by booking the standard accommodations that you can find on internet. Best of luck, The Guys @ DCGreeks.com Other Servings of The Daily Gyro
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