Rails · Athens
Athens is not a rail node like Vienna — it is a metro city with a suburban railway stitched to the airport and the port. The Proastiakos does the airport run; the metro does everything else.
The suburban railway (Proastiakos) links the airport to Larissis central station in about 44 minutes and to Piraeus port in under an hour, on the same €9 airport ticket that also covers a connecting metro ride within 90 minutes.
Beyond the city it runs to Corinth in about an hour (€6) and on to Kiato in the northern Peloponnese, with a branch to Chalkida on Evia (~1h20, €6) — the rail answer to the region’s day-trip demand.
Athens’ metro — 91.7 km, 66 stations, three lines — is the city’s transport backbone. Line 3 (blue) serves the airport (40 minutes to Syntagma, €9); Line 1 (green) runs to Piraeus for the ferries; Line 2 (red) serves Larissis station for OSE intercity trains to Thessaloniki.
A 90-minute city ticket costs €1.20; a 24-hour pass €4.10; the 3-day tourist ticket (€20) includes a return airport trip. Since January 2025 contactless bank-card tap-in works across the network with a €4.10 daily cap, and lines 2 and 3 run all night on Saturdays.
Judge Athens by metro standards, not rail-node standards: for a visitor, the airport-to-Syntagma run is one of Europe’s cleanest 40-minute links, and the ferry stitching via line 1 is what actually matters. The Corinth and Chalkida branches are the two best-value day trips in Attica — Ancient Corinth and the canal before lunch, seafood on Evia by evening. The gap to watch: intercity rail to Thessaloniki remains slow; until that line is upgraded, the bus often beats the train.
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