Here are my Top Things to Pack for a short-break in Athens with teens or tweens
1. Sun cream and sunhats
Even in mid-April, temperatures were in the late 20s. The narrow streets and covered outdoor terraces of the historic centre do offer shade. However, you will be completely exposed to the sun on the Acropolis and at the Agora. A high factor sun cream and hats for everyone are definitely something to pack for Athens with teens and tweens!
2. Walking boots / comfortable shoes with a good grip
Be prepared to walk – a lot! The streets are hilly and can be uneven. In some areas, particularly at the Acropolis and other ancient sites, stone steps have worn to be quite slippery. Flat, comfortable shoes with a good grip will make life easier. I wore smooth soled canvas shoes when we visited Mycenae and spent most of the way back down clinging to my husband to keep me upright!
3. Refillable water bottles
Its hot and you will want to drink a lot of water! You will find water fountains at both the Acropolis (just beyond the Parthenon near the toilet block) and the Ancient Agora (just on your left as you enter).
4. Headphones / headphone splitter
Some of the museums, including the Acropolis Museum, have audio guides. However, you can only access these by scanning the QR code on your mobile and then using your own headphones. Museums generally don’t have physical audio guides or headphones that you can rent.
If, like us, one of your children hasn’t yet got his or her own phone, it is possible to buy headphone splitters to allow 2 people to listen to the guide on one phone. You can pick these up quite cheaply on Amazon, like these ones here.
5. Swimmers / lightweight beach towels for your teens and tweens
Even in April, our kids couldn’t resist the allure of the Aegean. Read more about our day trip to Aegina here. We had assumed it would be paddling temperature at best (and to be honest I don’t think it was warm enough for swimming). However, the boys were determined so ended up going in in their shorts and t-shorts as I hadn’t packed swimming trunks. I did however pack a lightweight gym towel (this is mine but there are others) which didn’t take up much room (or weight) in our hold luggage.
6. Plug adaptors
Greece uses the same adaptors as the rest of continental Europe. As such, any UK to European adaptor should work.
7. Portable battery charger or power bank
Anything other than the newest of phones is going to struggle on battery when you start taking – as you undoubtedly will – a million photos and videos of the sights of Athens. Moreover, we were also using Google Directions on our phones to get around, as well as having electronic entry tickets stored on them. As a result, by the end of the day we were navigating back to our Airbnb on 1% battery and praying we would recognise our street before the screen went blank. I mentioned this to a friend once we were home and she recommended that we take a portable battery charger on future trips. I will definitely be investing in this.
8. Things for teens and tweens to do in the down-time
Cramming everything into a short break is exhausting and both you and the kids will need some down-time. in this respect, we were lucky that the TV in our Airbnb (see my review of our Airbnb here) had Netflix so our Netflix login was enough to keep the boys occupied for much of our resting time!
Our boys were 10 and nearly 12 at the time of our trip. We packed books, sudoku puzzles, a regular puzzle book, magazines / comics (Science Focus, National Geographic and Beano). Each boy took their emptied-out school bag as take on luggage (the school bags just fitted within the measurements for free under-the-seat cabin bags on Easyjet)
