Athens Metro

The Athens Metro is the underground public transport system of Athens, constructed by the Attiko Metro company ('Attican metro') and the ISAP (Ilektrikoi Sidirodromoi Athinon-Pireos) company ("Athens - Piraeus Electric Railways"). Many ancient buildings, ruins and artifacts were discovered during the excavation works for several downtown stations: most were carefully restored
and are displayed within the stations, making the Metro system a daily museum tour of the city's illustrious heritage.

During the creation of the metro tunnels, several artefacts of arcaeological interest were discovered. This was brought about as a result of what is known as 'salvage archaeology', that is archaeology that comes into play when systematic excavation is required, not by the problems of
antiquity but by the imminent destruction of historical material. Teams of archaeologists worked ahead of, then alongside engineers for a total of 6 years. They protected and recorded the archaeological evidence that was uncovered which included Ancient streets, houses, cemeteries, sanctuaries, public workshops, foundry pits, kilns, aqueducts, wells, cisterns, drains and sewage tunnels. Together this allowed a new insight into the topography of the city in ancient times. Never before has such a rapid development of infrastructure been accompanied hand in hand with the attentive study and preservation of archaeological data.

Exhibitions of ancient artefacts and/or their replicas can be found in various stations, such as those of Monastiraki, Akropoli and Syntagma.

Each ticket costs 1 euro. There is also a reduced fare for the price of 0.50 euros which is valid for students (with a valid student card). Tickets are valid for 90 minutes for both directions after they have been validated. One must validate one's ticket once at the machines at the entrance of the station from which the passenger starts his journey. Tickets can be used in the subway (lines 1, 2 and 3) as well as in all other means of public transport in Athens (buses, trolleybuses, tram and part of the suburban railway). There are daily (3 euro) and weekly tickets (10 euros) and monthly cards (standard fare: 38 euros, reduced fare: 19 euros) which also apply for all means of public transport in Athens. Control is frequent. Passengers who fail to show a validated ticket or a monthly card are required to pay 60 times the price of a standard ticket (48 euros).

Download a map of Attiko Metro (including future expansion) --> PDF (2 MB)