I have worked in Athens regularly over the past two years and have stayed at the Pentelikon almost every other week.

The staff are unfailingly friendly and helpful. The hotel is located in a tree lined northern suburb of Athens away from the bustle of downtown Athens. The rooms are comfortable if a little variable with the nicest, best equipped but most expensive rooms in the new block while the best value rooms for regular business travellers are on the 4th floor of the main building.

Most of the public areas have been refurbished over the past two years: the bar and a new small gym last year and most recently the main restaurant/breakfast area. The hotel has a nice pool and an attractive garden at the rear.

The Pentelikon may not have all of the facilities of say the Athens Hilton but more than makes up for this by providing a warm and personal service.

We have just returned home from Greece where we stayed at the Pentelikon hotel in the trendy area of Kifissia. This hotel has great potential of becoming once again what it used to be in the good old days. All the members of the staff are extremely polite and very helpful, the common areas are rather small but inexcellent condition, the pool area is very nice and the food and beverage area of the hotel is magnificent.

However the dark side of the hotel is the state of the rooms in the old building (there are two newer buildings) where we stayed which are not up to the standard of the rest of the hotel. The furniture were very old and tired as were the equipment in our room. The bathroom area although it looked as if it was renovated a few years ago was in the same condition and the water pressure in the shower was nearly non existent. Most of all what we did not like is the condition of the electrical appliances and the wiring of the hotel which we realized on the first night when we tried to switch on the bed lamp of my litle son and sparks came out of it (and ofcourse that resulted in a power failure in our room at one thirty in the morning). Moreover the aircondition in our room that looked like something out of the seventies had wires hanging from its broken buttons and was making a horrable noise which forced us to switch it off at night so that we could sleep. Finally the only elevator of the hotel was breaking down all of the time during our stay there due to the fact that it was very old and needed urgent replacement.

Will we ever be back? Only if they renovate the rooms, reequip them with modern airconditioning units, fix the wiring in the rooms and replace the elevator with a modern one.

This hotel cannot be considered 5 stars by any stretch of the imagination. Although my room was rather spacious, the furniture was old and not in very good shape. The balcony door was broken and I had hard time closing it. The bathtub faucet was broken as well. Worst of all, the carpet in the room was simply filthy. I even did not want to walk barefoot. My co-worker's room was really bad and he asked for another room.
I was going to ask for another room too but decided first to see my co-worker's new room. His room was clean but really tiny. It felt cramped and claustrophobic due to a sloped ceiling.
On a positive note, the hotel has a nice swimming pool, gym, and a garden. The service was friendly but not very prompt.

The Hotel Pentelikon is situated in Kifissia which is a suburb of Athens. Apparently many years ago the wealthy residents of Athens would retreat to Kifissia on the weekends and stay at hotels like this to escape the pollution and heat of Athens to take some “clean country air”.

Today Kifissia is just part of the huge sprawl that is modern Athens, and it seems unbelievable that this area was an escape as it is now chock full of houses and has a very large and developed shopping area.

However, the hotel itself is an oasis in this suburb. The original hotel build in the 1920s is right on the street with a grand looking entrance and lobby area with huge sweeping staircase. It looks lush, rich and luxurious on entering.

Just off the lobby are 2 restaurants which are pretty pricy, with one having a Michelin star. They do have fabulous food which is presented so well and stylishly that it almost seems criminal to eat. An even simple dish like a Greek Salad was a masterpiece of sculpture of tomatoes, onions and feta cheese. The restaurants are very popular and my Greek colleagues told me that they are especially popular with politicians and other dignitaries, and it is not unusual to have policemen hanging around as a result.

There are 3 buildings of accommodation: the original building plus 2 new ones that were built just before the 2004 Olympics.

I stayed in what they call “Building 2” which is where they have their “executive” rooms. The room was really good and I liked it a lot. It is small but very stylish with a large bed of a sort of 4 poster design but without the canopy on the top, large comfy chair, and chair and desk to work at. The bathroom was as beautiful with a wall of frosted glass doors with a large shower behind one door and a toilet behind the other.

Even the meeting rooms, which are in another new building, were good. The provision of free internet access in the bedrooms was also a nice touch.

The fitness center was a real disappointment. 3 cardio machines and very light weights with no bench. It is a real missed opportunity. There is a large pool in the gardens which looks great.

If you stay ask for building “2” and “3” as the rooms in the new buildings are supposed to be much better than the old rooms. One side of these is on the road and the other side looks over the pool. The soundproofing is fantastic and the road quiet so it does not really matter which side you are on.

I would stay here again, as the hotel, food and service by everyone is excellent. Although location wise for tourists it is probably a bit far from the main tourist sights.

You can see a video of the room I stayed in by pasting this link into a new browser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F38pmkxr8uw