How to get to Greece. Rail transport in Greece By train from Greece to Europe
Located in the Balkan Islands, in the very south of Europe and bordered by Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. There are almost 2000 islands in the country, the most famous and largest of which is Crete. You can get to Greece from Russia, Ukraine, CIS countries, Europe and the world by plane, ferry, bus, train and car.
Airplane
The largest in Greece and one of the most modern in the world is the International Airport of the city - "Eleftherios Venizelos", which connects Greece with many countries. Also, from other countries direct flights are carried out to the cities: Thessaloniki, Alexandroupolis, Kavala, Kalamata (Peloponnese peninsula), Heraklion and Chania (Crete island), as well as to the islands: Corfu, Rhodes, Kos, Mykonos, Santorini, Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Lemnos and Samos. In addition to national airlines, the direction is served by European low-cost airlines: easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air.
Train
By train you can get to greek city Thessaloniki from Belgrade (Serbia) by night train of the Serbian Railway, 14 hours 17 minutes on the way. Also, you can get to Thessaloniki from Sofia (Bulgaria) by the train of the Bulgarian Railway, in 7 hours 7 minutes. Trains from Thessaloniki to Athens leave several times a day, and the travel time is 5 hours 20 minutes.
Bus
The bus will not be able to get to greek islands directly, but to Athens or Thessaloniki is quite real. It makes sense to get to these cities by bus from neighboring Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Albania. From Sofia you can get to Thessaloniki in 5 hours, to Athens in 12 hours, by buses from the Greek company "KTEL" and the Bulgarian "Ilias Travel". The Greek company "Crazy Holidays" takes buses from Istanbul (10 hours to Thessaloniki), from Belgrade (8 hours to Thessaloniki), from Budapest (16 hours to Thessaloniki), from Chisinau (23 hours to Thessaloniki).
Automobile
To plan road route to Greece on European roads, you can calculate the cost of gasoline and tolls on motorways on the website "Via Micheline".
Ferry
You can get to Greece by ferry from Italy and Turkey. Ferries from the Italian cities of Ancona, Bari and Trieste go to Corfu. From these cities there is an opportunity to get to the Greek city of Patras and Igoumenitsa. In addition, ferries from Venice and Brindisi sail to Patras and Igoumenitsa. The shortest route: Bari (Italy) - Igoumenitsa (Greece), 10 hours on the way by day or night flight, operated by the Greek company "ANEK Lines". You can get to the island of Rhodes from Fethiye (Turkey) by ferry company "Tuana Maritime", travel time - 1 hour 30 minutes.
You can find the necessary ferry flight to Greece and see the schedule on the website
Has made an invaluable contribution to European culture. Literature, architecture, philosophy, history, other sciences, the system of statehood, laws, art and myths of ancient Greece laid the foundation for modern European civilization. Greek gods known all over the world.
Greece today
Modern Greece is little known to most of our compatriots. The country is located at the crossroads of East and West, connecting Europe, Asia and Africa. Length coastline is 15,000 km (including islands)! Our map help find original corner or Island, which I haven’t been to yet. We offer a daily feed news... In addition, for many years we have been collecting Photo and reviews.Holidays in Greece
Distance acquaintance with the ancient Greeks will not only enrich you with the understanding that everything new is a well-forgotten old, but will also encourage you to go to the homeland of gods and heroes. Where, behind the ruins of temples and the rubble of history, our contemporaries live with the same joys and problems as their distant ancestors thousands of years ago. An unforgettable experience awaits you recreation, thanks to the most modern infrastructure, surrounded by virgin nature. On the site you will find tours to Greece, resorts and hotels, weather... In addition, with us you will learn how and where visa and find Consulate in your country or Greek Visa Application Center.Real estate in Greece
The country is open to foreigners wishing to purchase real estate... Any foreigner has the right to do so. Only in border areas, non-EU citizens need to obtain a purchase permit. However, the search for legitimate houses, villas, townhouses, apartments, the correct execution of the transaction, the subsequent maintenance are not an easy task that our team has been solving for many years.Russian Greece
Theme immigration remains relevant not only for ethnic Greeks living outside their historical homeland... The forum for immigrants discusses how legal issues and the problems of adaptation in the Greek world and, at the same time, the preservation and popularization of Russian culture. Russian Greece is heterogeneous and unites all immigrants who speak Russian. At the same time, in recent years, the country has not met the economic expectations of immigrants from countries the former USSR, in connection with which we are witnessing the reverse migration of peoples.Grekoblog has already touched upon the topic of travel by railways in Greece more than once and, it would seem, has completely exhausted it. However, relatively recently, the Greek railway operator TrainOSE made one important innovation - now it has become possible to buy tickets for intercity trains on-line, which will allow all of us to be more flexible in planning our trips.
Introduction of the service for booking and buying railway tickets on-line opens up another opportunity for travelers. Now it is quite easy not only to buy a ticket for the desired date, but also to view the train schedule along the route. If someone has come across an attempt to find out the timetable of the Greek railway before - will not let you lie - it was a very difficult task. Especially for those who were not very at ease with the Greek language. Everything is easier now. And although the work of the English-language version of the site still leaves much to be desired, nevertheless, it is much more "advanced" than the one that was previously.
However, for those who are used to using Google Chrome, the problem with the language is not that big. In its composition, the Greek language has much more in common with Russian than the same English. Therefore, at worst, you can always clarify everything incomprehensible by resorting to the help of an on-line translator - there should not be any special difficulties.
It is clear that Grekoblog could not pass by the opportunity to test the service and did exactly on the eve of the New Year. So for those who are experiencing difficulties with the operation of the service, we decided to print a step-by-step instruction.
First of all, we go to the service website: http://www.trainose.gr/
Trainose.gr service start page
In the left corner we have a window Αναζήτηση δρομολογίων, which means - "Search for a schedule." Since the English version at the time of the test did not display the Latin names of the necessary stations, I had to "drive in" in Greek. For those who do not have a Greek keyboard layout, you can start typing in English: a drop-down list will appear, from which you can then select the names of the desired stations in Greek. Then we enter the travel dates, choosing απλή μετάβαση, if we are traveling one way, or με επιστροφή, if we are interested in a return ticket too. Press again Αναζήτηση δρομολογίων and see the schedule for the desired day.
Directly in the train schedule, the English version works much better.
In our case, it can be seen that on the selected day (January 10), 7 trains leave from Athens to Thessaloniki. Departure time of the 1st from Athens is 7:18 am with arrival in Thessaloniki at 12:41. It follows from the schedule that it is more profitable to buy via the Internet: the ticket price starts from 19 Euro, while when buying through the ticket office Best offer- 21.3 Euro.
Having chosen a suitable route in time (in our case, number 58, departing at 16:16 from Athens), press the button “Preview and buy tickets”, which appears in the lower right corner, and see confirmation of the selected train.
Before choosing seats in the carriage, the system will offer to check if everything is correct
If everything is correct, click “Continue” and proceed to the selection of seats in the car.
Each carriage contains seats at a different cost, although the difference between them is not obvious.
So, before us is a diagram of the train and seats in the car. Before we move on, you should pay attention to the following points:
A1, B2, B3 and B4 - show the numbers of the cars and their class. A - these are cars of a higher class, B - of a lower class. The price, accordingly, will also differ. The green color of the carriage is the one in which we are choosing seats at the moment. You can switch between cars by hovering the mouse cursor over them.
The color in which the seats are highlighted corresponds to their value. In our case, orange stands for 19 Euros, blue for 29. Seats closer to the edge of the contour line are near the windows, the rest are at the aisle.
In our case, only seat place... And do not delude yourself that this is because of class B - in class A, too, the seats are only seated, although they are more comfortable.
Before proceeding to the selection of seats, in the “People traveling” menu, indicate how many of you are going to travel by this train.
If you still have questions or you see an unfamiliar color of places, then in the upper right corner, click the usage guide, which will give answers to all possible questions.
Having chosen the place you like, click on it with the mouse - it will be painted in a different color. Then click on “Buy tickets”. After that, you will be redirected to the payment menu, where you can enter your card details to pay for the selected seat.
Card payment interface for selected seats
Please note: in our case, the system confirmed that the ticket was selected for train # 58, departing on January 10 on the Athens-Thessaloniki route. The selected seat is located in the B4 carriage, and its number is 82. The total cost of the ticket in our case is 19 Euro.
At the next stage, the system will ask you to indicate the name that will be entered in the ticket, as well as an arbitrary password word “for every fireman”. This will be followed by the generation of the document. To be honest, I never figured out how to print it, so I used the PRTSC button to “take a picture” of the ticket on the screen, and then save it via PAINT as a JPG file. After all these "shenanigans" I just printed the file on the printer.
The document contains initials, surname, ticket number, route, cost, train number, date and time of departure, class of the carriage, its number and place.
At the train station in Athens, before boarding the train, he simply showed the printout to the controller - he nodded and no additional questions did not ask. Within an hour after departure - already inside the train - there was another control, and it was also required to simply show it to the controller. The ticket did not need to be punched, not certified, or composted. However, just in case, you should have a document with you, in which your name and surname will be written in the same way as on the ticket.
This, in fact, is all. I hope you find this post useful and good luck with your travels.
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A few years ago to get current schedule trains in Greece outside its borders were daunting: for some reason, the Greeks, having printouts of the timetable in tourist offices, did not post them on the Internet at point-blank range. Now times have changed, and you can finally find out all the details online. True, there are still some nuances that are better dealt with separately.
So, in 2012, the Greek rail operator OSE successfully launched ticket sales through its revamped website. At the same time, it became possible to view the train schedule. Grekoblog wrote a detailed article on how to use the site using an example.
With this route, everything is simple and there should be no problems. But they can arise if you deviate from the well-trodden roads and want to try Greek railways in the hinterland.
Therefore, we decided to dig a little deeper in order to place more dots above the “i” and help to sort out those situations when the decision does not lie on the surface.
The railway network in Hellas is rather small.
Peculiarities of travel planning from Athens
As we wrote earlier, Greece's railway network is rather small, but developed. There are three types of trains on the routes: regular (E), regular intercity trains (Intercity - IC) and high-speed intercity trains (Intercity Express - ICE).
There are two main branches departing from Athens: to northern Greece and to the South (Peloponnese). Almost all routes from the capital can be found on the TRAINOSE website.
Tickets are sold at train station ticket offices, travel agencies and through a network of agents. You can also purchase them online or make a reservation by phone.
If you are going to actively use trains on your journey, it may be more profitable to purchase. The latter differ in the number of days during which you can make a voyage, as well as depending on the age of passengers: youth (up to 26 years old) and adults (over 26).
In case of problems with tickets or booking, you can try to solve them through the main information centre OSE in Athens at Karolou, 1. The local English-speaking helpline is 1110.
The metro station where the station is located is also called Larisa
Communication with Northern Greece
Trains to Northern Greece leave from the capital at the station of Larissa (Stathmos Larissis). The easiest way to get there. The metro station, where the station is located, is also called. You can also get to the railway station from Athens International Airport by suburban train Proastiakos - we will talk about it in more detail below.
All "northern" trains go to Thessaloniki with stops at Thebes and Larissa (the city of the same name). From Thessaloniki you can reach other Greek cities in the north or the neighboring Balkan countries.
Information telephones in the direction: 210 529 8837 or 210 823 7741.
Station Proastiakos
Communication with Southern Greece
To get by railroad from Athens to the southern mainland, you need to take the Proastiakos - commuter train.
Regular trains leave from Athens International Airport, Larissa and Piraeus stations and continue to Korinthos and Kiato in the Peloponnese. In Corinth, you can change trains to other cities in the Peloponnese.
Schedule commuter trains Proastiakos in printed version.
Alternative timetable by entering the starting and ending points of the route. Please note that when planning your trip from the Greek capital to receive exact timetable should be introduced exactly the name of the starting station, not just Athens.
So, if your trip starts at the airport, the system should indicate Athens International Airport; if in Piraeus it is Piraeus. Choose Athens when your trip starts with railway station Larissa in Athens.
Telephone help desk: 210 527 2000
At Athens Airport, Metro and Proastiakos trains leave from the same station
International trains
Prior to the 2010 crisis, Greece maintained active rail links with other Balkan countries and Turkey. Then, in order to save money, these international routes were suspended for a while. Since May 2014, some of them have been renewed again. So, now (as of spring 2015) daily trains leave from Thessaloniki to Sofia and Belgrade (via Skopje).
You can check the current schedule of international trains from Thessaloniki on this page.
Photos by: κύριαsity, Giannis Houvardas
