If you complain about too much “foreign” food when you travel you can stop reading this now. But, if you want to see a place like the locals see it, then take a walking tour with Panos, our guide from Insider Tours. This four hour tour walks you across the inner city from seafood and meat markets, to olive and pistachio stands, to a secret coffee garden where everyone was under 30 (except us) and only the locals go. From craft beer to luscious baked good’s, everything was local and farm fresh. Panos, a rock and roll star when he isn’t guiding tours, couldn’t have been more entertaining and tailored every aspect of our tour to the interests within our group. We could not have had more fun while learning so much about the Greek culture of today. My highest recommendation!
We just completed a Flavor of Athens Food Tour with 6 couples who we are very close friends. Our group has varied tastes in food and drink and this tour exceeded all of our expectations! George lead our group and he was exceptional! George is a classically trained chef and is also an expert on Athen’s history. George did a great job in comparing the new Greek tastes we experienced with American dishes that we are familiar with in order to help us understand differences and similarities.
I highly recommend this tour with Athens Insiders!
David Arnold
Did the Acropolis and Food tour.Great combination! History meets modern life and the Greek food culture in a fun 4-hour tour. Our state-licensed guide Maria and Insider guide Panos offered us a unique experience. Highly recommend it to everyone!
This was exactly what we were looking for. George was great keeping both us and our early 20 kids engaged. The food was good but we really enjoyed the off script stuff that George showed us and talked about. His enthusiasm for the food and helping us understand the culture was great. He also is a Johnny Cash fan which we lived since we are from Nashville.
Athens Insiders organizes the tours and excursions for my wife and I during our stay in Athens. The guides were all very knowledgeable, and experienced, immersing us in the culture, mythology and ancient history. We loved our walking tour of Athens, visit to the Acropolis and museums and were impressed by the time each guide was willing to spend answering our questions in detail and giving us a detailed look at all the things that interested us most. Stelios and especially Sissi were spectacular guides in Athens.
The highlight of our entire 12 day trip was the 3 days we spent with our private driver and guide Yannis Varouhakis. Yannis stood out to us within the first few hours of our private excursion to the Temple of Poseidon. He conversed in fluent English as though it is a first language and was able to carry on the most interesting discussions on all topics from art, architecture, ancient and modern history, philosophy and politics, etc. He stoped at any location that he thought we would appreciate in harmony with our conversations, places not even included in our original tour itinerary allowing us to dive even deeper into to the different periods of history and culture that we otherwise would have missed. He took us to all the best and coziest family restaurants, helping us order the most traditional as well as adventuresome dishes, even taking us back into the kitchens to make it a truly fabulous culinary experience.
It was hard to say good buy to Greece not just because of the magic of history and culture that reside in her coasts and ancient ruins, but also because it was hard to say good buy to our new friend Yannis. We highly recommend both Athens Insiders and especially Yannis Varouhakis for your next trip. We will definitely be coming back!
