Athens International Airport to Kifissia

There is a moment, somewhere along the last stretch of avenue, when the traffic thins and the plane trees close overhead, and you understand why we who live in Kifissia are so quietly pleased with ourselves. This is the northern edge of Athens — cooler, greener, a little slower — where neoclassical villas sit behind wrought-iron gates and the cafés keep the unhurried hours of a place that has never quite needed to prove anything. Coming here from the airport is a gentle undertaking, but it does reward a little forethought, for the suburb lies some 35 kilometres north of the terminal, at the very top of the map.

A tale of two green lines

The most agreeable frugality is the metro, and it deposits you almost at our doorstep — Kifissia is the northern terminus of Line 1, the old green line, and there is something fitting about arriving at the end of the oldest railway in the city. The catch, such as it is, involves a change. You board Line 3 at the airport station and ride it into the centre, then step across at Syntagma or Monastiraki onto Line 1 and let it carry you all the way up. One ticket of €9 covers the whole journey, change included, which I find rather civilised — no fumbling for a second fare, no anxious sums.

Reckon on a little over an hour, perhaps 65 minutes door to platform, with trains running every thirty to forty minutes. It is not a swift passage, and I would not pretend otherwise, but it is a restful one: you watch the city assemble and then dissolve past the window, and by the time the carriage empties out at the top of the line you are already breathing the lighter air of the foothills. For a traveller unburdened by heavy cases and in no particular hurry, it is my quiet recommendation.

When a fixed fare pulls its weight

There are evenings — when you land late and frayed, or with a trunk too many — when the thought of two trains and a change at Syntagma loses all its charm. On such occasions I send people straight to the taxi rank at Arrivals Exit 3, where the licensed cars wait around the clock. Here is the happy particular of Athens airport: taxis to the city run on a flat tariff rather than the meter, and Kifissia, sitting at the very northern rim of that flat-fare ring, is still comfortably within it — €40 by day and €55 after midnight.

Because we are perched right at the edge of that zone, I always counsel the same small courtesy: confirm the fare with the driver before you set off, so that the flat rate is understood by both parties and there are no raised eyebrows on arrival. Do that, and the taxi is a fine thing — around forty minutes, straight to your gate, no ticket machines and no schlepping of luggage up escalators. It is the option I choose myself when the hour is late and the day has been long.

The luxury of being expected

For those who would rather not join a queue at all, a pre-booked private transfer through the likes of Welcome Pickups or Kiwitaxi arranges matters in advance: a fixed price agreed at booking — around €50 to €65 — with a driver on hand in arrivals, and the same swift run of roughly forty minutes up to the suburb. It costs a touch more than the flat-fare taxi, but it dispenses with even the smallest uncertainty, and it is faster and far less fiddly than the two-line metro trip. For families, for first visits, or for anyone who simply prefers to be met rather than to fend, it is a small indulgence I would not begrudge.

Settling in, once you've arrived

However you come, allow the suburb to slow you down once you are here. Kifissia is made for wandering — the shaded avenues, the villa gardens spilling bougainvillea over their walls, the pastry counters and the pavement tables where the coffee is taken seriously and at length. My honest counsel to any arriving visitor is this: take the metro if your bags are light and your afternoon is free, take the flat-fare taxi if the hour or the luggage argues against it, and book a transfer if you would rather arrive without a single decision left to make. Whichever you choose, the trees will be waiting, and so, in their own good time, will we.