Athens Shore Excursion: Small-Group Food Tour
Recommended by 92% of travelers
Badge of Excellence
Athens, Greece
- 4 hours (approx.)
- Pickup offered
- Mobile ticket
- Offered in: English
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Overview
When your cruise ship pulls into Athens port, get a taste for classic Greek cuisine on a 4-hour walking shore excursion. Stroll down the historical streets and make several food stops to sample enticing local specialities such as delectable 'loukoumades' dough balls, moreish ‘koulouri’ bread, 'pastourma’ sausage and more. Dip into bakeries, dairies and sweet shops, and discover popular Greek fruits, herbs and spices on a wander through the buzzing central Varvakeios food market. Numbers are limited to 14 on this small-group shore excursion, ensuring personalized attention from your guide.
- 4-hour small-group Athens food shore excursion
- Enjoy a walking tour through central Athens with a local, food-expert guide
- Sample savory Greek delicacies such as sesame-sprinkled koulouri and syrupy loukoumades pastries
- Explore the spice, fruit, meat and herb stalls in the lively Varvakeios food market
- Learn about classic Greek cuisine and delicacies from a knowledgeable guide
- Small-group tour limited to 14 people for a more personalized experience
What's Included
- Food and beverages sampling
- Round-trip transfer from the Port of Piraeus and back
- Food tour
- Free time in Plaka
- Food specialist guide
- Athens guide magazine
- Athens map
- Gratuities
- Lunch or dinner
Meeting and Pickup
You can head directly to the meeting point, or request pickup
Operating hours.8:45 am
Itinerary
Monastiraki (Pass By)
Psirri (Pass By)
Evripidou (Pass By)
Aiolou (Pass By)
Varvakios Central Municipal Market (Pass By)
Additional Info
- Confirmation will be received at time of booking
- Not wheelchair accessible
- Near public transportation
- Most travelers can participate
- Inform us of any food allergies
- Comfortable walking shoes, sun-screen and a hat are recommended
- Dress according to weather
- This tour/activity will have a maximum of 24 travelers
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Cancellation Policy
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
Traveler Photos
Reviews
4.6
based on 39 reviews
joy_w, Mar 2025
There is a lot of walking BUT well worth it. We visited neighbourhoods that we would not have seen on our own. A wide variety of foods were tasted and different spice shops visited. Our guide, Nike, was very knowledgable about Athens and made sure we had a good time. The bonus for us was that we were collected from Piraeus Port, being on a cruise ship, and returned. Our driver was great and made sure we had all the relevant information. WhatsApp is a blessing!! Highly recommend this tour. If you are in Athens during low season it is even better as not so crowded!!
Response from Host, Mar 2025
Thank you for your wonderful review, Joy! We're so glad you found the walk worth it—Athens has so many hidden gems, and it’s great to hear you enjoyed exploring them with Nike. Tasting local flavors, discovering spice shops, and experiencing the city’s pulse is what makes this tour special. And yes, WhatsApp truly is a lifesaver! We appreciate your recommendation.
Warm regards,
Athens Walking Tours Team
Thomas_P, Oct 2024
Took the tour from a cruise ship. We were picked up by a taxi provided by the tour and delivered to the start point of the tour. The small group is ideal because the streets are narrow. Katerina (guide) provided information on some local places along the way. As a food tour, it wasn’t something we were concerned about if it wasn’t part of the tour. If you are, stay close to her or you will not hear much while walking. The stops were as listed and the food was good. Katerina Is very nice and did a great job keeping everyone together throughout the tour. There weren’t many stairs along the route.
When the tour was over we had to walk back to the drop off place. The route was easy and there were many shops and cafes along the way. I’d guess that the total distance was 3.5 to 4.5 miles.
When we returned to the pickup point we waited until the designated time and were picked up and returned to our cruise ship. We arrived back at 4pm.
Response from Host, Oct 2024
Thanks for sharing your experience, Thomas! It sounds like you made the most of the tour’s variety and Katerina’s local insights along those narrow streets. We're glad the small group size worked well for you, and it’s great to know that getting around was smooth and manageable. Your tip about staying close for the walking commentary is appreciated, and we’re happy to hear you enjoyed the journey back with the lively shops and cafes along the way. Safe travels on the rest of your cruise!
Peter_S, Oct 2024
Orestus was the best guide. Very personable and knowledgeable. Took us to the best foods and places. Couldn’t be better.
Response from Host, Oct 2024
Thank you, Peter! We're happy to hear that Orestis made your food tour such a memorable experience. His passion for sharing the best local flavors and hidden gems really shines through. We’re glad it was everything you hoped for! Looking forward to welcoming you again on another delicious adventure.
Scott_H, Sep 2024
What an unexpected delight this tour turned into—super fun!! What would have been interesting and I'm sure tasty turned into an absolute unforgettable experience due to our guide, Eva. She not only "knew the tour" well, clearly had developed great relationships with many of the owners of the places we visited, and was a wonderful font of information steeped in Greek foodie culture, but she was also was a caring guide and an absolute blast to hang out with! What a warm happy zest for life (and Greek culture) Eva exudes and shared with us throughout our varied stops. Again— we (10 in total from all over the world) could not have had a better time. Terrific value. We highly recommend this foodie tour!
Response from Host, Sep 2024
Thank you, Scott, for your warm review! We're thrilled to hear you had such an unforgettable experience on the Athens Shore Excursion Food Tour. Eva truly brought the tour to life with her passion for Greek culture, deep knowledge, and wonderful personality. We love hearing that our guests not only enjoy the delicious food but also the special connections made along the way. It's great to know that the tour was a fun and memorable experience for everyone in your group. Your high recommendation means the world to us, and we hope to welcome you back for more culinary adventures in the future!
Dian_M, Apr 2024
Great tour! Theo was excellent. Knowledgeable, kind and very informative. Has a great time visiting the neighborhoods of Athens Greece and sampling wonderful food. If you like getting off the beaten path of a city and seeing it up close this is the tour for you!
Response from Host, Apr 2024
Hi Dian, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us! It’s great to hear that you had a great time on our food tour with Theo. He's truly passionate about showcasing the best of Athens and providing informative insights along the way.
Exploring the neighborhoods of Athens and sampling delicious food is definitely a highlight, and we're delighted that you enjoyed every moment of it. Our aim is to offer unique experiences that allow our guests to immerse themselves in the local culture, and it sounds like Theo did just that.
We're grateful for your recommendation and hope to have the pleasure of welcoming you back for more culinary adventures in the future!
Alison_K, Oct 2023
I think we had 6 or 7 stops along this tour. Our guide, Fotis, was wonderful and shared so much information about the culture and sights that we passed while walking. The food was amazing and we definitely ended with full bellies! Our favorite stop was the Olive Oil store because the owner/creator happened to be there that day and was funny and shared a lot of information. His store was super cool and featured products from many local small businesses. After the tour, we had about 3 hours in the Plaka district before being picked up and taken back to the cruise terminal. We used that time to walk to the Acropolis and see the Parthenon. Highly recommend this tour to anyone who enjoys food and learning about local cultures, but also appreciates dedicated time to do your own self-exploration.
William_G, Sep 2019
An outstanding excursion lead by a very knowledgeable guide. We had many different "snacks" that were accompanied by lots of good information and conversation.
Leo M, Dec 2017
This was a fantastic tour in spite of a rainy day in Athens. We ate street food, sampled different foods in small shops, ate pastry in a friendly café, and topped it all off with a huge gyro in a cozy restaurant. At the start of our tour there was a difference in the pick up time at the end and the time stated in our voucher but it was worked out with our tour guide and our taxi driver and at the end of the tour our driver was exactly where he promised to be to pick us up.
toole.michael, Jun 2017
Great tour! My only advice would be do NOT eat breakfast! You will get TONS of food throughout the tour and then end with a Gyro lunch... so come hungry!
Jennifer M, Dec 2016
Great alternative tour and a unique way to see Athens.
Our guide was wonderful.
TONS OF FOOD, GO HUNGRY!
CATHERINE R, Oct 2016
If you like to eat and this is not your first trip to Athens or you're looking for something different, consider this tour. Our guide was knowledgeable and entertaining as she led us through back streets, food markets and specialty shops to taste and learn about the food culture of Greece. We enjoyed nibbles and samples throughout the morning as we walked off the calories we consumed!
stephen_g, Sep 2016
I was disappointed. First of all, this was suppose to be a food tour. Our first stop a small church where we spent a 45min talking about family and how it affected are eating habits. Then we walked a brisk pace there the city. She never looked behind see if we had left anyone behind. Finally one of us told her to
slow down.In fact one of the person on the tour tripped and fell. We maybe at the most visited 6 vendors.
Didn't really taste that much of the local foods. We stopped at a cafe for green beans and wine. I was expecting more for lunch. Then went to a gyro place later. After the tour she showed on the map where we to meet our returned transportation. We weren't even allowed time to browse thru a food store that
had unique olive oil, relishes, etc that she demo. Boy, did she take off after our tour was over as if she
didn't what to be here. Had much better food tours than this.
Jane_R, Sep 2016
The food tour of Athens was a highlight of our trip to Athens. The group was small and the tour guide interesting and well versed in Athens history. The food was excellent and we had plenty of time to walk the calories off. After the tour we had time to visit the new Acropolis Museum which is a must to see. You walk over the excavated market area of Athens on glass floors a real experience and quite exciting.
Scott M, Aug 2016
Great experience , great way to see the real Athens . Food was fantastic , guide informative and day was very pleasant . Pick up and drop off at cruise port was flawless .definately a great day .
Patti P, Aug 2016
This was an excellent, walking tour. You will get plenty of food and information. It was first thing in the morning so I suggest you don't eat a big breakfast. There is a lot of walking on this tour.
RA_A, Aug 2016
Excellent tour, very interesting and informative. Our guide was very knowledgeable and informative and very helpful about return trip to the boat. I would highly recommend this tour.
Lonna H, Jul 2016
One of the best tours. Loved the snippets of Greek history, lifestyle that were seamlessly woven into the tour. We loved that we ate where Greeks eat, not where tourists eat.
curtisc_t, May 2016
This tour was very informative and a lot of fun.
Our guide however was very speedy she left everyone in the dust, the handicapped and the nonhandicapped had a hard time staying up with her . She was nice, but even after several requests she would not slow down. This would not have been an issue, but we called ahead and informed the tour of my disability and we're assured it would be no problem. It was very difficult, but still a good tour.
Deanene H, Jun 2015
I am so happy that I found this small food tour. It was amazing. I learned which foods are traditionally Greek and tasted so many good foods. The meat and seafood market was a highlight. But, there were so many others. We tasted camel meat too. You have to take this tour.
cynthia p, May 2015
A very interesting way to understand the ways of Athens! The fish market, the meat market and the fruit and vegetable market were an impressive background to the actual food sampled. Good food seems to come with enthusiastic cooks and interesting people!
DANIELLE E, Dec 2014
We had a great time. If you have seen all of the historical sites and are interested in seeing some of the "real" areas of Athens I would recommend this tour. We walked away stuffed and with the knowledge of how the Greek people really eat.
NorthUmpquaFarms, Nov 2014
This is an excellent tour. We are still telling friends stories from this tour and its experiences. This is a tour of the REAL Athens old town -- not the tourist area. Food shops and restaurants were very good and the vegetable and fish/meat markets were interesting (and clean). We take food tours often in our travels and find it a great way to really experience an area. The cruise ship pick-up was easy and on time. However, the ride back to the ship was several hours after the end of the walking tour and a substantial distance from the end of the tour as well as being within an hour of sailing time. We opted to cancel that ride and our guide was nice enough to call us a taxi and arrange a fare to take us to our ship. I would highly recommend this tour.
Paul W, Oct 2014
This was a fantastic way to see a new city from a different perspective. Despina our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable about the history of Greek food and drink and how it was interwoven with other more recent cultures. Our tour group was nice and small and ranged in nationalities from Europe to Asia. We would strongly recommend this tour and will definitely use this tour company again.
annie, Oct 2014
we had been to athens before, but never saw what we saw on this tour, fresh meat market, spice store, we even saw a garden that grows up vertically to save space...highly recommend this tour
yellowpatch, Oct 2014
A really fun experience, especially for when you are all "ruined" out on tour. We thoroughly enjoyed starting with bread for breakfast and working our way through a typical Greek day. There were plenty of samples along the way to satisfy any hunger pains, plus the walk through the meat and fish markets was particularly interesting.
Andrew N, Sep 2014
We had a wonderful time on this "Shore Excursion." We were on a cruise ship and did not want to do the "typical" tour of the Acropolis, etc., so we found this Food Tour online and booked it right from the ship. They were waiting to pick us up right from the port and after a slight confusion about which tour we were on, we met our guide, who took us on a fabulous tour of Greek food. The guide (Artemis) was really great and it was fun being with a local for the day. It was great seeing stuff that the typical tourist would probably miss. Although I was somewhat nervous about getting back to the ship on time, our ride back met us at exactly the precise time we were told, so it was a wonderful day in Athens!!
Dorene A. C, Nov 2013
Our guide Artemis was outstanding-funny, knowledgable, perceptive. She took us to a wealth of hidden culinary gems, which , I would submit, very few people would stumble upon on their own. My only request would have been to spend some time in the sausage and cured meat store sampling some of their wares. I have been recommending this tour to everyone I had met on Holland America's Rotterdam cruise, if for no other reason than to be led around by one's "nose' to sample some of Athen's food treasures by a larger than life guide reminiscent of the lead actress in " My Big Fat Greek Wedding "! A raving success, and one of our most precious memories on a trip chock full of them. cordially, David and Dorene Cohen
A_J, Oct 2013
Sophie was an excellent guide and gave our small group of 8 an in-depth tour of a local part of Athens. Of the 12 stops we had tastings at eight so don't overdo breakfast before you go. We also learnt much about social history, current economics and a little politics so came away thinking it was money very well spent.
Katherine S, Oct 2013
This tour was a mixed bag for us. The food we tasted was all delicious, the guide was knowledgeable and it was very interesting to see non-touristy parts of Athens. We were a bit disappointed with the amount of food that was involved, as other tastings tours that we have done included a larger amoun
Fiona H, Sep 2013
We really enjoyed this Tour. My Husband was not impressed when I told him I had booked this tour. He thanked me at the end!
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