Places to visit around The Athenian Riviera ~Athens

Athens has become a favorite destination of mine and last year, I had the opportunity to visit the place twice. Once in March and the second time in November. We were really fortunate with the weather on both trips.Temperatures were 20-24 Degrees C, really comfortable and perfect for sight seeing.
In February we visited all the historic sites and the city centre, the highlight was climbing the Acropolis and visiting the Parthenon, I wrote about this experience in my post Things to do in Athens.

During this second trip, second trip to Athens we decided to stay out of the city and explore The Athens Gold Coast also known as The Athenian Riviera which is a coastal area few kilometres out of the city of Athens. This is an area of many small towns such as Glyfada, Faliron, Voula, Vari, Varzika, Voula and Vouliagmeni and many more surrounding towns stretching from Pireaus to Sunio

Faliron is the closest coastal town to Athens. It has modern apartment buildings, lots of shops, restaurants, cafes and a seafront where you can sit and watch the waves as you enjoy a coffee and pastry. Glyfada another nearby town has a lovely town square which is lively and has a lot of local activity. It is the centre of Coastal Athens, it is surrounded with many designer shops and small malls scattered around, bars and restaurants. In Glyfada you can even find an eighteen hole golf course, if you area golfer and want to play a round or two of golf whilst on holiday.

Voula is another nearby lovely sea side town, it has a beautiful beach where you can hire sun beds, parasols and spend a day at the beach. There are many restaurants, bars, cafés and coffee shops if you get peckish. There are many beautiful apartments in Voula,it is very affluent area of the Athenian Riveria. 

In Voula, on Saturdays there is a lovely organic fruit and vegetables market where the local farmers bring their produce to sell. For a foodie like me, it is food heaven to see so much amazing fresh organic produce. I would highly recommend a visit to this market especially if you are staying in a self-catering apartment.

You will never be short of places to eat in Athens, there are many restaurants, coffee shops and eateries and if you are a vegetarian like me food is no problem as there are many vegetarian options available. If you are a non-vegetarian foodie, than Vari is the perfect place to visit. Vari is well known for its psistaria's these are grill houses that specialise in outdoor cooking, barbecuing and cooking whole lambs, pigs and goats.

If you carry on driving through Vari, you will come to a lovely town of Varkiza. It is thought that this town has some of the cleanest and best beach area in Athens. Again like all the other towns, the beach front locations hosts many shops, coffee shops, bars and restaurants. 

The area of Vouliagmeni is located between two small peninsulas, Kavouri and Lemos. It is a well-known for its wooded area and it has some really nice local beaches both paying and free. In Vouliagmeni, you will find the famous Lake Vouliagmeni. Vouliagmeni means sunken, the lake was formed when the roof of the cave fell because of erosion caused by the high temperature of the running water. The lake is a natural spa and the water is full of minerals that are thought to have healing properties as it’s fed by an underground river and caves. The lake is surrounded by cliffs and underground caves and is very picturesque.

You can spend the day at the lake any time of the year. The facilities on offer are changing rooms, children's play area, gift shop, a coffee shop and restaurant serving food and drinks. You can hire towels and sunbeds which are dotted around the lake. 

There are premium sunbeds as well as basic depending on your budget. The lake has little black fishes that nibble at your feet giving you a free pedicure. Swimming is allowed in the lake and the water temperature is pleasant. I would highly recommend spending a day at Lake Vouliagmeni if you are visiting the Athenian Riveria.

Athens offers a good metro and tram and bus transport so getting around is easy. Car hire is also another option which will offer you more freedom to explore the Athenian Riveria area, the towns and beaches.

There are many hotels around the Athenian Riveria, we stayed at the beautiful Athenian Riveria Hotel. Its tastefully furnished with clean, comfortable rooms which are spacious, bright and airy with lots of amenities. The hotel has a restaurant, bar area and an outdoor sitting area with a pool. The service is outstanding and all the staff are extremely helpful. This is the second time we stayed at this amazing hotel you can read about the Athenian Riveria Hotel in more detail in my post from March 2019.

We stayed in Athens for 7 days and this is just a snippet of the places we visited. In my next post, I will share my experience of a Greek Cookery class with the Greek Key, our Olive Picking adventure, our trip to Poseidon Temple in Sounion and the day out to Evia Island.

You may like some of these posts about Athens:

Dining out in Athens
Things to do in Athens

I would like to thank Lake Vouliagmeni who invited us to spend a day at the lake to enjoy the facilities and also a very big thank you to Athenian Riveria Hotel who were extremely generous and hosted our stay for the entire 7 days. All the views and opinions in this post are of my own experience and are honest.