A Rainy Day in Athens

The month-by-month table

A "wet day" is one with at least a millimetre of rain; "heavy" means ten millimetres or more, which in Athens usually arrives as a short, hard storm rather than a day of drizzle. Read the wet-days column rather than the millimetres: it is the one that predicts whether a day of your trip gets rained on.

What the numbers mean for a trip

A week in July has roughly a one-in-two chance of containing a single wet day, and that day is likely to be a shower rather than a washout. A week in December contains about two wet days and, on average, most of a heavy one. Spring and autumn sit between: five or six wet days a month in April and May, three in September and October — which is one of several reasons those two months are the ones we recommend on when to visit.

And the shape of Athenian rain

It tends to arrive as a front rather than as weather that sits on the city. A heavy hour at eleven and clear light by three is a much more common December day than eight hours of grey. That is why the plan below is built to be abandoned halfway through: if it clears, Philopappos Hill after rain, with the dust washed out of the air, is the best view of the year.

From 1 November the sites shut at 15:30

The state archaeological sites run 08:30 to 15:30 from 1 November to 31 March, with last admission twenty minutes earlier. So on a December day that rains until one o'clock, the Acropolis is not a fallback for the afternoon — there is no afternoon. The museums are the opposite: the Acropolis Museum runs late, and Friday to 22:00 all year. The opening-hours table has every site's winter band.

Which reverses the usual advice

In summer you do the rock at eight and the museum in the afternoon heat. In winter, if the morning is wet, do not save the rock for later — either go up between showers or write it off for the day and give the whole thing to museums. Trying to do both in a five-hour winter window is how people end up with twenty minutes on the Acropolis in the rain.

Morning: the Acropolis Museum

€20, no slot, and the one museum in the city built to be looked at as well as looked in. Two hours is honest. It is also the museum that makes most sense on a day you cannot go up the rock, because the top floor reconstructs the Parthenon's dimensions with the real building in the window — a substitute that actually works. The museum's page has the layout.

Lunch: the second-floor restaurant

The best-value indoor view in Athens. The museum's second-floor restaurant needs only a free admission ticket from the desk — you do not have to buy the exhibition ticket to eat there — and it looks straight at the Acropolis. It stays open to midnight on Friday and Saturday.

The ground-floor shop and café need no ticket at all.

Afternoon: pick one of three museums

The National Archaeological Museum at €20 is the biggest and the best, and needs two hours of its own — but note it opens at 13:00 on Tuesdays. The Museum of Cycladic Art at €12 is an hour and is closed Tuesdays. The Museum of Modern Greek Culture in Plaka at €15 is the third, and it is the one that carries a declared entry hour — see the tickets hub.

If you want to be out but dry

The Varvakios central market on Athinas is covered, loud and entirely indifferent to weather, Monday to Saturday. The arcades off Monastiraki and the covered stretches of Ermou work for an hour. And the metro itself is a genuine option: Syntagma station holds an archaeological display of what was dug out during its construction, and it costs a €1.20 ticket you were buying anyway — getting around has the fares.

The evening

Psyri is the wet-night district: dense, covered where it matters, and the part of Athens that does not care what the sky is doing. Where to eat has the rest.

The marble is polished, and it is the hazard

Two and a half thousand years of feet have burnished the rock and the ancient steps to something close to glass, and wet it is genuinely slippery — the Areopagus beside the entrance is the worst of it, which is why the site provides metal steps alongside. There is no shelter of any kind on top. If the forecast is heavy and your ticket is for that hour, remember you can move the slot twice, free, up to 120 minutes before — this is exactly the situation that rule exists for.

And the case for going anyway

A light shower on the Acropolis empties it. If you have proper shoes and the rain is passing rather than settled, the twenty minutes after it stops are the best light and the fewest people you will get all year. That is a judgement about your footwear, not about your ticket.