Here is the mistake, and it is a common one. You book a bus to Delphi. You put “Athens bus station” into a map. It sends you to Kifissos, because Kifissos is the bigger one and the one the internet has heard of. You arrive in good time, you look at the departure boards, and Delphi is not on any of them. It is not delayed and it is not cancelled. It leaves from a different building on the other side of the neighbourhood, and by the time you have worked that out, it has gone.
This is not a failure of attention. Athens genuinely has two intercity terminals, they genuinely have no shared signage, and which one you need depends on a division of the map that nobody explains to visitors.
Kifissos, or Terminal A
Officially the Athens Kifissos Bus Terminal, on Kifisou Avenue in the west of the city. It is the larger of the two and the busier: this is where you go for Patras, Kalamata, Nafplio, Sparta, Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Igoumenitsa, and the ferry ports that get you to Corfu, Kefalonia and Zakynthos.
It is a proper terminal. There are cafés, a left-luggage counter, toilets you would use, and a departures board that works. It is also large enough that the platform number matters — buses to different parts of the Peloponnese leave from bays that are a two-minute walk apart, and if you are cutting it fine, that two minutes is the whole problem.
Getting there
There is no metro station at Kifissos, which is the second thing that catches people out. City bus 051 runs from Omonia. A taxi from the centre is straightforward and, split between two or three people, often works out cheaper than the time you lose. From the airport, the X93 express runs directly to Kifissos and is the sensible choice with luggage.
Liosion, or Terminal B
Smaller, older, and considerably less obvious. It sits at Liosion 260, in Kato Patisia, in an area locals call Tris Gefyres — three bridges. It handles central Greece and Thessaly: Delphi, Trikala and Kalambaka for Meteora, Volos, Lamia, Karpenisi, Chalkida, and Katerini in the north-east corner of its territory.
Do not expect the same experience. Liosion is more of a large forecourt with offices around it than a terminal building. Ask at the ticket window rather than looking for a board, and when in doubt, say the name of your destination to a driver — drivers here are used to being the information desk and are generally good about it.
Getting there
The nearest metro is Kato Patisia on Line 1, and it is a walk from there rather than a step outside. City buses run along Liosion. Again, a taxi is often the honest answer if you have a bag and a bus to catch.
How to tell which one you need, without asking anyone
The reliable test is not the compass, it is the region. Greek intercity buses are operated by regional cooperatives — one per prefecture — and each terminal serves a bloc of those regions.
| You are going to | Terminal | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Nafplio, Corinth, Sparta, Kalamata, Tripoli | Kifissos | Peloponnese |
| Patras, Ioannina, Igoumenitsa | Kifissos | Western Greece and Epirus |
| Thessaloniki and the north | Kifissos | Macedonia and Thrace |
| Corfu, Kefalonia, Zakynthos | Kifissos | Bus and ferry together |
| Delphi, Arachova, Itea | Liosion | Fokida, central Greece |
| Kalambaka for Meteora, Trikala | Liosion | Thessaly |
| Volos, Larissa, Lamia, Karpenisi | Liosion | Thessaly and Fthiotida |
| Chalkida on Evia | Liosion | Its busiest single route |
If you booked through us, the terminal is printed on the ticket and stated again on the departures screen before you choose your bus, in the form “Leaves from KIFISSOS Terminal A — not Liosion, they are 4 km apart.” That sentence exists because of exactly this problem.
Where to stay if you have an early bus
Neither terminal is in a part of Athens where you would choose to spend an evening, and we would not send you to a hotel next to either one for the sake of the walk. The area around Liosion in particular is workaday and poorly lit at night.
A better plan for a dawn departure:
- Stay near Omonia or Metaxourgeio rather than at the station. Both are central, both have real neighbourhoods around them, and both put you inside a ten-minute taxi of either terminal. Metaxourgeio has become genuinely pleasant in the last few years.
- Check the hotel's actual check-out time against your bus, not the one in your head. If your bus is at 07:00 and check-out is 11:00, you are fine. If your bus is at 18:00 and check-out is 11:00, ask at reception the night before whether they will hold your bag — most will, free, but only if you ask.
- Book the taxi the night before if you are leaving before about 06:30. Athens is not short of taxis, but at 05:45 you do not want to find out.
- Do not rely on the metro for a very early bus. Line 1 starts around 05:00 on weekdays and later at weekends, which is not the margin you want.
If you are arriving into Athens on a late bus and going straight onward the next morning, the same logic runs backwards: sleep in the centre, not at the station.
One large caveat, and it is coming
When it does open, the single most annoying thing about taking a bus out of Athens will have been fixed, and this article will be about six paragraphs shorter.