Evripides Hotel - Athens, Greece 

Nice hotel with one strange habit
Posted: Mon, Nov 23 2009
The hotel is situated in a side street, between Omonia and Monastiraki, in a poor area. It should not be dangerous but being careful is never bad. It is certainly not a reason for not going there. The hotel is perfectly renovated. Every experienced greece traveller will tell you that, unless you go for hotels with roomprice around 110 euro a night. The rooms are georgous. You can take a simple breakfast on the 7th floor terras with a marvelous view on the Acropolis. For a city hotel in a mediteranean country, indicating "62 rooms situated on 6 floors with private bathrooms, radio, AIR-CONDITION, refrigerator, etc." you would expect the airconditioning TO BE INCLUDED in the prices they offer. Well no, big was our surprise after a day travel, all exhausted of the heat... airco costs you 5 euro more... How to sleep in a warm and noisy city with open windows?????? "Oh," the two night receptionists said: "In other countries you have to pay for special movies..." So very public relations oriented they are not, and should I conclude they adopt bad habits they have experienced of others, even if you can't compaire: I don't need "special movies", airco on the other hand is basic equipement. I suggest to order well in advance a room on the 6th floor with window in the side street. But as i understood when waiting for my key, also that seems difficult for them to organise. But surprise, opposite the nightly discussions, we had all the help we needed during the day from the day receptionist. Wow what a difference a day(light) makes. So, a very nice hotel (DECIDE if you want airco or not and adapt your price). A real pitty they pull down the image of the hotel in such a cheap and uncomprehensible way. Maybe they should adapt the rules of honnest publicity.

For budget travellers, good outweighs minor bad
Posted: Wed, Jul 23 2008
On balance, it's hard to beat this place if you're mainly looking for a clean room at a bargain price. The location is as reported. Although we found it perfectly safe over four days, those jittery about the look of the immediate location might want to look elsewhere. The street is very much working-class commercial during the day, and quite lively, although, yes the building directly across is abandoned on the upper floors and looks like it's been bombed. Graffiti on buildings, but that's Athens these days, including in much tonier areas; ridiculous. Clusters of immigrant men do tend to congregate on the street and stoops at night, but we heard as we passed (50ish American couple) not so much as a disrespectful word.Tip: turn right immediately out the front door, take the next immediate right down a narrow street and even though it feels at first like a dark alley, you'll find yourself in a nice square in the heart of very lively (at night, it's a commercial area by day) Psiri in about two or three minutes by foot. Three or four minutes more to Monastiraki and its subway stop. Another 15 minutes walking and climbing stairs, and you're at the foot of the Acropolis on the pedestrian walkway that goes around it: not bad.

Glad I Didn't Follow Advice Here
Posted: Tue, Jul 01 2008
Saw the reviews here after booking and almost cancelled; glad we didn't. So here's the facts: Athens changes a lot over short areas - more so than most cities. And this place is right on the intersection of three different areas: an area infamous for drugs; a poor area with immigrants; and an area with bars/restaurants and a lot of night life (this is from chatting with a couple of Greek friends). We were told to avoid the area just to the north, and around Omonia square on a night, but Evripides street itself, although a poor area with many immigrants, is OK (it is true that the building opposite is deserted; thankfully that is not where you are staying...). We certainly had no problems, but if you want to avoid young, coloured men on an evening (and I suspect that's what the negative reviews are mainly about), then approach the hotel via Eschilou rather than Athinas/Evripides. Apart from that, it's a great little hotel. The location is excellent (the metro station at Monistariki has trains directly to both the airport and the sea port; the Acropolis is in easy walking distance; there's a market just to the east where you can get bread, cheese and vegetables (and the rooms have fridges)) and both our rooms (we stayed here twice, before and after visiting Crete) were clean and recently decorated (the bathrooms looked completely new). The owners (I assume - they were always around) were friendly and the breakfast was fine. It's just two stars, but for the price it's spot on. We would certainly stay again. On the 6th floor the rooms have balconies, but you're directly below the eating area/bar, so may hear tables being moved around morning and evening (we thought having table and chairs outside worth the slight noise). Oh, and a negative thing, although not really associated with this one hotel - we were bothered by Mosquitos (ended up buying those smouldering spiral repellant things from a shop down Evripides).