The best Acropolis tour with kids – Alternative Athens review

Visiting the ancient Acropolis is unmissable during a family holiday in Athens, but this is one time where it definitely pays to arrange a guide for an Acropolis tour with kids.

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Because while the site itself is fascinating, dating back around 2,500 thousand years, looking at the ruins isn’t going to keep most children enthralled, without knowing the stories behind them and the significance of what they’re seeing.

And if you’re looking for the best Acropolis tour with kids, it’s hard to beat the Young Heroes family mythology tour from Alternative Athens, as we discovered during our trip.

While I’d visited the Acropolis several times on previous visits, it was my daughter’s first chance to explore properly – and as a huge fan of Greek myths, I knew that a tour focused around gods, goddesses, heroes and legends would appeal.

And that turned out to be an understatement. After more than three hours exploring the Acropolis site, including the Parthenon, as well as visit to Pnyx Hill, our tour guide Vasia kept her enthralled and entertained throughout.

After meeting at the Acropolis metro station, just a minute’s walk from the entrance, we settled in to learn more about the history of the site – accompanied by one of the Acropolis cats, who had evidently worked out tourists were a good source of strokes.

While it’s not exactly the key reason to visit, spotting the string of cats, who’d each appropriated a temple or area of the site as their own personal territory, was definitely the icing on the cake for my daughter!

With a drawing of some of the major gods in the pantheon in front of us, and some fun quiz questions to get us drawn into the stories, we started in the theatre of Dionysus, learning more about this particular fun-loving god, before moving on to the Sanctuary of Asclepius, to learn more about the hero and god of medicine.

Top trivia: Did you know that the word Acropolis literally means ‘high city’?

Intertwined with the myths, including their usual dramatic family histories and events, there’s a chance to learn about the history of Athens itself – not only the building of the various sites in the Acropolis, but everything from medical treatments in Ancient Greece to theatre performances.

Which brought us neatly on to the Odeon of Herodes Atticus or Herodeon, the stone theatre in one corner of the Acropolis site which is still used for concerts to this day, hosting a string of big name performers including Sting and Elton John.

But that, of course, is only a taster of what’s to come, climbing towards the famous gate to the highest point of the Acropolis, home to its three most important temples and other significant sights like the Propylaea.

Near the gate itself, the smaller temple of Athena Nike, with the Erectheion and the Parthenon inside – via a conversation about why Athena was so important to the people of Athens, how to conserve a site like the Acropolis and how slippery marble gets in the rain!

Not to mention another discussion about a particular big-name sports brand which took its own name from Nike, the goddess of victory.

While the Parthenon gets all the glory (understandably), the Erectheion has the best stories. This smaller temple, decorated with the famous caryatids, is said to be the site where Poseidon had challenged Athena for control of the city.

As god of the sea, Poseidon struck the floor of the temple with his trident to make water flow, before Athena struck the ground with her spear and made an olive tree grow. To this day, there’s an ancient olive tree to the side of the building, said to be a descendent of the original – the current tree was planted in 1952 from a cutting made during the Second World War.

What I hadn’t realised was that if you go around the side of the Erectheion, there’s a gap in the temple where Poseidon’s jet of water was said to have gushed towards the heavens.

The Alternative Athens family tour of the Acropolis isn’t just about history either, we got plenty of tips about the best places to take photos (as well as having a few shots of the pair of us in front of the Parthenon too).

The Parthenon itself can feel hard to appreciate once you’ve marvelled at its size – that is, until you hear the stories of what it would once have been like inside. Once it housed a huge gold and ivory statue of the goddess, with a pool of water in front of it, designed both to reflect the light and illuminate Athena, as well as to moisten the air and preserve the ivory.

And the famous scenes depicted on the Parthenon frieze around the outside of the temple, might once have been brightly painted, we learned – a far cry from the pale marble you see today.

Vasia was also great at explaining the significance of the panels in the frieze too, from the order of the images to the little details – something we would never have known without an expert tour guide.

And where better to finish an Acropolis tour with kids? On nearby Pnyx Hill. While that might sound an odd place to finish, for starters you get a fantastic view back to the Acropolis in its own hilltop setting.

But Pnyx Hill is interesting in its own right too. Known as the birthplace of democracy, it’s here that orators like Aristotle would once have addressed the crowds.

These days, it’s a rather more peaceful spot, although you can still see the area where speakers would have declaimed – and a great place for one final creative challenge for kids, to design their own hero.

With so many tales from Greek myth to inspire, not to mention the thought of one of those cats being a hero in disguise, it was the perfect experience for kids – and a huge amount of fun for adults too.

Check out my pick of the best kids books about Greece, including some family-friendly Greek myths

Acropolis tour with kids: need to know

The Alternative Athens Young Heroes family mythology tour costs 65 Euros for adults, 52 Euros for kids aged 6-17 for a three-hour tour (ages 5 and under are free).

Tickets for the Acropolis are not included in the price – it’s easy to buy these individually or get combination tickets for other sites in Athens, although Alternative Athens can also advise. You may need to buy tickets direct to get discounted rates for children, if they aren’t EU citizens.

Get a discount on entry to the Acropolis if you book through the Tiqets website using my code, MUMMYTRAVELS6

It runs at 9.30am daily from mid June to the end of August, with a maximum of 15 people in the group. Private tours are also available year-round, including alternative times during the day.

You can also buy tickets via Get Your Guide with free cancellation plus there are other tour options if you’re looking for a kid friendly guided tour of Athens, including a street art tour of Athens, which we also tried. Check out the complete set of family-friendly tours of Athens.

If you’re visiting during the summer months, especially during peak summer, bear in mind that there’s very little shade around the Acropolis and it can get extremely hot – bring plenty of water, and hats/suntan lotion are essential.

Don’t miss a visit to the Acropolis Museum as well, which houses artefacts taken from the Acropolis site. It’s best to visit the museum after you’ve explored the site itself, as the displays are set out in the same order as the temples and buildings that you visit, so it’s easy to visualise them in their original homes.

There are also some great family backpacks to borrow in the museum, which will appeal to younger kids especially, plus some little family information boards dotted around the museum too.

For more information on the museum and ideas of the best things to do in Athens with kids, check out my top picks, as well as my guide to Greece with kids

Disclosure: We received a free Alternative Athens Acropolis tour for kids, for the purposes of review, although paid for our own entry to the Acropolis site. All opinions are my own and my daughter’s. This post contains affiliate links – any purchases you make are unaffected but I may receive a small commission

Parthenon image courtesy of Depositphotos, all other images copyright MummyTravels

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