Rental Car in Athens

We are renting next month from Athens car rental for the second time. We are renting from the airport and returning the car there.

Rent a car from the Airport, unless you like chaotic city driving in a place where you don't know the streets, the one-ways or not even the Alphabet, let alone the language. A very reliable outfit -- is http://www.athens-carrental.com/ -- many of us "greece vets" have used it repeatedly; excellent reviews. ARC has big fleet, new/almost new cars and v often better prices than the international biggies -- that's because they don't rent the super-pricey €€€ desks in the Airport. Their rep will meet you at Baggage claim or front door or wherever is convenient, & walk you outside the door 50 yards to your car. Get instructions, sign papers, do a walk-around to check any existing dings (always prudent, with any agency!) and u r on your way. Return is just as easy.

And yes, these days, with the "supply chain" problems worldwide, it's prudent to reserve ahead. If you need automatic shift it is Mandatory... because 80-90% of European car fleets are stick-shift.

Beth -- again we cross-post! Great minds etc ...

Or, for a trip to Meteora, rent a car in Larissa.

We are planning to stop at Delphi on the way. How does one get to Larissa?

Larissa is easy to reach by train, most (all?) trains between Athens and Thessaloniki stop there. But if you plan to stop in Delphi, renting a car in Larissa would not be a great idea.

We have just returned and rented from Athens Car Rental at the Airport in Athens. They met us at the airport and made the pickup and return very easy.

We also rented from Athen's Car Rental in early May to go to Meteora. Since we were coming from downtown Athens we met them at the metro station just before the airport stop and that worked well. They met us at 5AM at the airport on our departure day which was great.

I am back from Greece 2 days ago. We rented a car from https://www.kosmos-carrental.com/en. Perfect experience. I rented a car from Athena Airport - the guy was waiting with the car at the departure line. We went to Meteora. Returned to their Athena office near Acropolis. Very easy experience except for driving in Athena. ( worse than in Manhattan). They gave me a good small car, automatic, 4 doors, even with 4/6 of fuel and I returned only with 2/6 of fuel according to the contract.

Thank you for all your replies. This is really helpful and the best advice is from fellow travelers!

I am in meteora now. Rented at Budget downtown athens, didn't want to bring bags back to airport via metro or 30 euro taxi. Driving in athens wasn't the greatest, Google maps struggles with GPS cause of buildings and its a little crazy, but I survived so far.

I use expedia and sort on total price... but consider an upgrade cause the car I got is really minimal by modern standards... it works though.

I didn't reserve before I left... seems they had plenty... plus, if they run out of cars I am pretty sure they will move cars from other places... name of that business is to keep those cars driving at all costs. If they do run out, backup would be a 2 day tour to meteora. I decided to stay a second full day, but unless your a serious hiker I think one day is enough... saw 3 monasteries yesterday, none today, 3 is enough in terms of internals... leave wanting more, this place is beautiful but it talks like 30 minutes to drive the road and see it all without stops, best views are on the road... the place is really special, I do like it here...

One thing I learned though, it really is setup for tour groups. My hotel shuts off the AC except from 7 to 10AM and 5 to 10PM, which sucks. If you stay at grand meteora hotel with a car, ask for room 120 or 220, great view, bed is way to hard and AC nazis suck though, otherwise it would be a 5 star hotel IMHO.

Thanks. That is really helpful about Meteora, too!

We're just home and rented a car from the Athens airport to drive to Nafplio, Epidavros and Mycenae. We used a Greek travel agent and rented from Avis at the airport. The price was reasonable and I bought their extra local insurance. With a worldwide company, if you have a problem you are better able to work on it when you get home than if you are trying to do international communications across some ESL barriers.

Driving was easy and the main roads were in excellent shape. Exits come up quickly and tolls are pretty high-but it's vacation, right?
A good GPS is critical because many secondary and town roads have NO SIGNS!

As we began to plan our trip we decided to rent the car after an island trip. So we will be at the Piraeus Port, not the airport. ACR does not rent for less than 7 days from the sea port. So, I'm thinking of going with Kosmos. Paying extra for unlimited miles and a GPS. I read that it might be possible to navigate without data? Have others tried this?