Luggage Storage in Athens: Airport Terminals, the City Beyond Them and Beach Day Costs

You wheel a suitcase out of the arrivals hall at Athens International Airport, and the city still lies ahead of you with its museums, its garden and its hill crowned by the Acropolis. What you do with those bags shapes the first day. The airport in Spata is where every trip with luggage begins and ends, and the city around it holds the stops that make a day with bags worth planning.

Where can you store luggage in Athens?

Your luggage journey in Athens starts and ends at Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos, the official name of the airport that serves the capital. It stands in Spata, in Attica, and every bag that arrives by air passes through it. Knowing how the airport is laid out helps you decide where to be with your bags and when.

The airport and its two terminals

The airport has two terminals: the main terminal and the satellite terminal. The satellite is reached by an underground link, so a part of your walk to a gate can happen below ground. Travelers meet the main terminal first, because it holds the check-in hall.

The main terminal is where you hand over a suitcase for a flight. All of the check-in desks are there, 153 in all, so there is no second check-in hall to look for at the satellite. The satellite is a place to walk through to a gate, not a place to start your trip with bags in hand.

Airlines you will meet at the check-in desks

Athens is the main base of Aegean Airlines and a hub for Olympic Air, so many of the bags rolling through the hall belong to travelers heading to the Greek islands. Ryanair and Sky Express also operate from here as operating bases.

Each airline has its own luggage rules at the desk, and those belong to the carrier and the ticket you hold. What stays constant is the place: the main terminal, where the desks are gathered.

Between the airport and the city

The airport lies about 12 miles east of central Athens. The road is longer than the map suggests because of the hills in between, and by road the distance stretches to 19 miles. That gap matters if you are planning to leave bags at the airport and come back for them after a day in town.

Once in the city, the stops that draw travelers are within reach of a bag-free wander. The National Archaeological Museum holds the world’s largest collection of ancient Greek antiquities. The National Garden, completed in 1840, is a green refuge in the center of the capital, and the Acropolis is one of the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites inside the city, along with the medieval Daphni Monastery.

What does it cost?

The one charge that comes up around Athens in these pages is at the beaches of the southern suburbs, where an entrance fee applies at the organized stretches of sand. Many sandy beaches there, such as Alimos and Glyfada, are operated by the Greek National Tourism Organisation and require that fee. It is the cost to plan for if you head to the sea with your day’s belongings.

Beaches of the southern suburbs

Alimos and Glyfada lie in the southern suburbs of Athens, away from the historic center. Because they are run by the national tourism organisation, you pay at the entrance rather than simply stepping onto the sand. If you arrive in Athens with a free afternoon and a swimsuit, that fee is part of the plan.

The sea is a draw in a city whose climate is hot in summer, as the Mediterranean pattern would suggest. Take the entrance fee as part of the beach day, the way you would a drink at a seaside café.

The cost of the road from the airport

The road between the airport and the center is 19 miles, though the straight line is shorter. That figure is the useful one for judging a taxi ride or a bus trip, since you travel the road and not the straight line. Whatever you choose, the distance is the same for every kind of vehicle.

Beyond that, the sights themselves are not described here with prices. When you plan a day around the museum or the garden, work out the cost of each stop on the day you go.

What should you know before you go?

Know that the airport is large, that it has two terminals, and that it sits well outside the city, which shapes any day built around bags. The airport began operation on 28 March 2001, and it has grown into a base for several airlines. It is a modern gateway, not a small regional field.

The size of the airport

The current phase of the airport accommodates 26 million passengers a year. A final expansion phase will raise that to 50 million. The scale explains why the main terminal holds so many check-in desks and why a separate satellite terminal exists.

The satellite terminal is built for six million passengers a year. Two parallel asphalt runways serve the airport, one of 13,123 feet and one of 12,467 feet. For a traveler, those figures mean that flights come and go from a big, busy place with plenty of room to move.

The city your bags are heading to

The Municipality of Athens counted 643,452 residents in 2021. The urban area numbers over 3.6 million and is the eighth-largest in the European Union. When you step off the plane, you enter a metropolis, not a small port town.

Athens is often called the hottest city in mainland Europe, which is worth remembering when you are carrying bags through the city in summer.

Good to know before you go

Keep some euros in a pocket for the entrance at the southern beaches, and take a water bottle if you walk the city in summer. The hot-summer Mediterranean climate means the sun is strong in the warm months, so a hat and sunscreen sit in the day bag. Athens rewards a lighter load, and the airport is where you decide how much to carry.