Compare trains, coaches, flights and ferries from Cologne to Athens. From €156.54, fastest 6h 6m, with the total price and every fee shown up front.
Travelling from Cologne to Athens costs €156.54 at the cheapest and takes 6h 6m door to door at the fastest, across 1 mode and 2 operators. The route covers 2,011 km. Cheapest is by Flight, fastest is by Flight.
Journey times below are door to door, so they include getting to the terminal and away from it at the other end. Fares are the cheapest we currently sell on 28 September 2026.
| Mode | Door to door | Moving | At the ends | From | CO2 | Per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flight | 6h 9m | 2h 59m | 3h 10m | €198.38 | 494.7 kg | 8 |
Two journeys we can sell today, with the service number each operator files them under.
Changes at Frankfurt am Main, with 48 minutes between services and a walk of about 14 minutes.
Door to door 6h 46mCO2 461.1 kgChanges 1Fixed, no changes
Door to door 6h 9mCO2 494.7 kgChanges 0Fixed, no changes
Live from the operators' own published timetables, through the open transit feeds they publish. Times and services are real. Fares are modelled until our booking connectors are live.
| Operator | Service | Departs | Arrives | Takes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DB Fernverkehr AG3 changes | ICE 725 | 14:45 | 08:03 | 41h 34m |
| DB Fernverkehr AG4 changes | ICE 201 | 14:56 | 08:03 | 41h 17m |
| DB Fernverkehr AG5 changes | ICE 821 | 17:45 | 11:30 | 42h 35m |
| Deva Tours2 changes | Hamburg to Tirana | 02:30 | 19:07 | 41h 7m |
| Deva Tours3 changes | Hamburg to Tirana | 02:30 | 19:17 | 41h 6m |
| DB Fernverkehr AG3 changes | ICE 915 | 07:32 | 19:07 | 36h 5m |
| DB Fernverkehr AG4 changes | ICE 915 | 07:32 | 19:17 | 36h 4m |
Live from our own engine, refreshed on every request. The cheapest days for each way of travelling are marked.
| Cheapest fare by mode and day for Cologne to Athens | Sat12 Sept | Sun13 Sept | Mon14 Sept | Tue15 Sept | Wed16 Sept | Thu17 Sept | Fri18 Sept | Sat19 Sept | Sun20 Sept | Mon21 Sept | Tue22 Sept | Wed23 Sept | Thu24 Sept | Fri25 Sept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Train | €417.24 | €369.94 | €287.99 | €248.94 | €336.94 | €329.79 | €256.09 | €266.54 | €256.09 | €185.69 | €212.09 | €211.54 | €269.29 | €216.49 |
| Flight | €370.66 | €348.24 | €244.99 | €249.71 | €275.67 | €326.41 | €240.27 | €245.58 | €268.59 | €211.36 | €198.38 | €220.21 | €263.87 | €227.29 |
Cheapest day: 2026-09-28 · €156.54
The flight gets you into Athens. It does not get you a bed, and neither do we.
Filter by neighbourhood and by price per night, and the map tells you what is a walk and what is a taxi.
Search Athens on Booking.comOr compare on Expedia
Partner links. We do not sell accommodation. We earn a commission when a booking completes, and it never changes what you pay.
The same search run across the whole booking window, so the shape of the curve is visible rather than described.
Book now Fares on this route are lowest around 60 days ahead. You are inside that window.
Median cheapest fare for each weekday, taken across the next three weeks of real prices.
The same journey priced on the fifteenth of each of the next six months.
Direct or connecting, how far the route really runs, and what happens when a connection is missed.
The stations, airports and ports each mode on this corridor actually uses.
ATH is not in Athens, and the road in from it is the part of the trip nobody plans. We sell the flight and stop at the terminal door.
A price agreed before you fly, a driver at arrivals, and a car big enough for the bags.
Book a transfer from ATH with Welcome PickupsOr check Daytrip
Partner links. We do not operate transfers. We earn a commission on a booking, and the fare is the same as going direct.
Speed, flexibility and what is on board. Nothing here is a rating, because we have not earned one.
| Operator | From | Fastest |
|---|---|---|
 Eurowings | €162.39 | 6h 6m |
 Ryanair | €160.62 | 6h 7m |
Every part of the total, so the number at checkout is the number here.
| Part | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Operator fare | €140.50 | 90% |
| Taxes | €14.05 | 9% |
| Our service fee | €1.99 | 1% |
| Total you pay | €156.54 | 100% |
Check-in is at three and you will be in Athens well before then. Lockers are not something we run.
Priced by the bag and by the day, booked before you get there, and insured while it sits.
Check Athens on StasherOr try Bounce
Partner links. We do not run these networks. We earn a commission on a booking, and the price is the same as going direct.
The questions people actually ask about this journey, answered from the same prices and times the page above is built on rather than written once and left to go stale.
The fastest journey from Cologne to Athens takes 6h 6m door to door, of which 2h 59m is spent moving, on the Flight. Most services take around 6h 17m, because that average includes slower stopping services and journeys with a connection. Times include reaching the terminal and leaving it at the far end.
The cheapest fare from Cologne to Athens is €156.54, checked on 28 September 2026. A typical fare across the next three weeks is €266.53. Both figures are the total for one passenger, including taxes, supplier fees and our service fee, so nothing is added at checkout.
The cheapest way from Cologne to Athens is by Flight, at €198.38 for one passenger on 28 September 2026. That journey takes 6h 9m door to door. Cheaper is rarely faster on this corridor, and the comparison table on this page shows what each mode costs against what it saves.
Fares from Cologne to Athens bottom out around 60 days before departure, at €117.49. Across the whole booking window the gap between the cheapest and the dearest lead time is 215 percent, measured on 28 September 2026. Booking inside the last week has consistently cost more on this corridor.
Monday is the cheapest day to depart from Cologne to Athens, at €185.69. That is the median of 21 priced departure days across the next three weeks, checked on 28 September 2026. Shifting a departure by one day is usually worth more than shifting the booking by one week.
February is the cheapest of the next 6 months to travel from Cologne to Athens, at €126.29 for one passenger. Each month is priced on its fifteenth, so the comparison is like for like rather than a mix of weekends and midweek departures.
2 operators sell services from Cologne to Athens across 1 modes: Eurowings, Ryanair. Journey times, fares and fare conditions differ between them, and the operator table on this page compares all of them on speed, flexibility and what is provided on board.
60 percent of the services we sell from Cologne to Athens are direct. The rest connect at Munich, Ljubljana, Frankfurt am Main, Tirana, with about 46 minutes between the two services. Both legs are sold on one booking, so a missed connection is rebooked at no charge.
Services from Cologne to Athens by Flight leave from Köln CGN and arrive at Athens ATH. Allow about 3h 10m in total for reaching the departure terminal and leaving the arrival one, which is already included in every door to door time on this page.
0 of the 2 operators we sell from Cologne to Athens allow a change or a refund. A change on a changeable fare costs €5.00. The operator table on this page names which is which, and the condition is shown again before you pay.
Observed service A carrier record shows this named operator serving this named pair, and we carry that through unchanged.
Schedules, seat counts and fares are generated by our own model until the supplier contracts are signed. Places, coordinates, operators, which operator serves which pair, and every distance are real. We would rather say that on every page than let a modelled number pass for a filed one.
Defined in full at Door to door, Fares, The booking window, Carbon, Distances
The flight is the simple part. What you do once you are in Athens is somebody else's catalogue.
Day trips that leave Athens in the morning and cover a good part of Greece by evening.
See Athens on GetYourGuideOr browse Viator
Partner links. We do not sell tours or tickets. We earn a commission on a booking, and it never changes the price.
Plan a trip from here
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