Living in Greece

English-language bookstores in Greece

February 26, 2008 at 12:52 ·

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In 40+ years living in Greece, your site is the first time I’ve had so much useful info in one place. I was looking for advice re what to do with my books since I’m moving to a smaller house. Actually I haven’t found the answer yet, but am enthusiastic about the potential of your site. If anybody has advice on where I can donate my books, do let me know and by the way I don’t live in athens so shipping needs to be considered.

Kat Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 07:25

That’s a good question. The only places I know that take used books in Greece are in Athens — Compendium Bookstore and various sellers in Monastiraki. Most expats I know sell their books online via eBay or something similar, donate their books to charity boot sales run by various organizations (i.e., SPAZ, AWOG), sell them via classifieds in English language newspapers or toss them in recycling. Universities won’t take used books, even if you donate them because they have specific needs and limited space. Sad but true.

There’s a stigma around “used” items, as if one is admitting they are poor. Greece as a whole does not recognize reusing and extending the life of perfectly good items, which may explain why the recycling program is failing miserably, treated water is seen as dirty (so there are water shortages), and environmental conservation remains low on the list of priorities.

Post it on craigslist or another internet board (craigslist doesn’t seem very popular in Greece, is it?) In the 70s and 80s, the womens collectives in Athens suburbs used to take english language books – maybe there is a collective local to you that would want them.

thanks for the info re donating used books. i’ll contact the various leads and post the results for others who might be interested.

I have tried searching your site for a section pertaining to mailing and shipping to/from Greece. I am currently living in Greece and had a very difficult time receiving a Christmas package FedEx’ed from my family in the U.S. It was a standard sized, relatively small box, not very heavy, for which they had to pay more than 200 dollars to ship to Greece. Then I had to pay an additional customs fee of nearly 300 Euros just to receive it. Both the shipper and I had to fax permission forms to the customs office, and wait for over a week after the package arrived in Athens to “clear customs” and receive it. So nearly 500 dollars/euros later (more than twice what the contents were worth), and nearly 2 weeks waiting for an “expedited” package I have my box. FedEx never explained any of this beforehand. Do you have any advice regarding how to mail things between the U.S. and Greece without this much hassel? Is this a typical experience?

Hi C,

This is a typical experience, and most people are unaware of procedures and duties until it happens to them. It is not explained by the courier beforehand because it is assumed you are informed and/or employees don’t know the laws of each country and/or don’t want to discourage you from using their services.

You’re right. An article on mailing and shipping in Greece has been written but not yet published on this website. When it is, I’ll transfer your comment there. For the time being, I’ll provide you with answers based on my 11 years of knowledge and experience of being on both the receiving and shipping end in Greece and the USA.

Many are willing to pay the extra cost of using couriers such as Fedex, DHL, UPS and TNT because they think it’s the fastest and most secure way to send things to loved ones in Greece, not understanding the bureaucracy and costly duties involved.

All packages sent by courier are subject to inspection by airport customs. This delays delivery. Fedex also uses a middleman (notoriously bad local courier) to deliver its packages, which causes more delay and more bureaucracy. If there is a problem with the customs form or its release, you’ll need to fax (as you did) or go in person to fix it.

Any package with a declared value of more than 50 euros — which includes the price of postage — is assessed a duty, usually expensive. Weight does not matter. If clothes, shoes or other textiles are inside, the price goes up. If those articles were made outside the EU, the price goes up even more. There is really no way to get around this because lying on the customs form will put the package in jeopardy. And should it be lost or stolen, no one can stake a proper insurance claim.

With respect to delivery, there are two possible scenarios:
1) If you’re lucky, the courier will attempt to deliver your package when you’re home, and they’ll ask you to pay duties. Assuming you have the cash on you, they let you have the package. If you’re not home or don’t have the cash, they give you a slip and you might be able to get them to come out again.
2) In some areas, delivery will not be attempted and you are expected to go to the airport to break it out of jail. This involves going to one office to pay, one office to get the receipt stamped and recorded, and another office (sometimes two, one being an office you’ve already visited) to show this official receipt to finally release the package. (I once paid two separate fees to two separate offices for reasons I don’t understand. And I didn’t ask why like I normally do because by that time I was thoroughly irritated after 2 hours and just wanted to get out without hurting someone or getting myself arrested).

If you refuse to pay duties, there are three possible outcomes:
1) Sometimes the courier will give it to you anyway. Why? Because it costs them time and money to send it back.
2) They’ll put in in the remainders bin at the airport and sell it or throw it away.
3) It will be returned to the point of origin, and the shipper will not get a refund.

If you want to avoid this in the future, I encourage your family to use regular USPS air mail. Yes, it takes 10-30 days depending on the service chosen and time of year, but the cost is significantly less, it’s incredibly reliable and it will not be subject to bureaucracy or assessed any duties. Instead, it will be forwarded to your local post office after inspection, your mailman will bring it to your home or leave a slip, and you can receive it at your door or pick it up without paying anything.

Should you have a need to use a private courier to send important documents or checks, I recommend:
a) USA to Greece: UPS. Efficient, cheaper, faster delivery.
b) Greece to USA: DHL. Ditto.

And if it’s something really valuable or something that can wait, just pick it up the next time you’re in the USA or have your family bring it when they visit you in Greece. Seriously.

I hope that helped, and thank you for sharing your experience. 🙂

Hi Kat!

My experiences w/ packages btwn Greece and US lead me to fully concur with your advice on shipping them. One small point: Since 01 July 2008, all packages coming to Greece from the US (only) via USPS are subject to a 3 euro “customs fee”, regardless of weight or value (or so I’m told by my servicing post office.). This being Greece, I suspect not all post offices are collecting this yet, but know that mine is, and the packages are stamped with 3 different rubber-stamps by Customs at the airport.

Buying from Amazon.co.uk is also ultimately cheaper than buying books in Athens.

Yes, I have been paying this 3 euros “customs” fee for some time. It is completely illegal, since Greece is required to implement EU customs rules not its own little Balkanised version of them. Of course, what this means is that things that should have no customs duty cost 3 euros, and other things that should have high duties, also cost 3 euros. Is this smart? No, of course not: it’s Greek laziness about opening the customs declarations (which are in English) and calculating the correct duty.

Long Live Stupidity; Long May the Lazy Prosper!

T – Good addition, as always. It is unclear whether the post office is instituting the change in my area because I’ve been charged nothing on packages coming by regular airmail; however, my male counterpart had to pay 6 euros on a single package the other day. How was this 6 euros calculated? No one knows.

X – My experience reveals an intermittent laziness. i.e., Sometimes my package is opened and haphazardly resealed (and things are missing, but they claim no fault). Sometimes it’s untouched and the customs official asks me what’s inside. And I’m thinking, “Uh…isn’t it your job to inspect it?”

* All shipping information and comments will be transferred to the new post, when the time comes.

Hello, I’m planning a trip to Athens and need a good street map that has everything but will not be a heavy weight like the roads.gr atlas and I can’t seem to find anything.

What do the locals use in Athens??? I thank anyone in advance for any info.

-Jeff in Ottawa, Canada

Kat Reply:
May 17th, 2009 at 22:53

Hi Jeff, I may make your question into a future post or poll. For the center of Athens, the EOT/GNTO or Greek National Tourist Organization street map is perfectly fine, and there is a map in the Athens Plus Weekly (athensplus.gr). The Athens Urban Transport Authority (OASA) also has maps available for outlying areas of Athens (northern/southern suburbs). All of these maps are available at the Athens airport, most tourist offices and other points of entry. They’re free.

For driving, I use a map book you can buy at any periptero/kiosk; but it’s only in Greek. For road maps in English, I recommend Road Editions (road.gr) or splurging for GPS (www.oramaeditions.gr), which is becoming more common amongst taxi drivers.

A lot of my friends don’t own maps and have no plans to purchase any, preferring to stop a stranger on the street or call someone they know to ask for directions, even berate them for not knowing.

Thought you might like to know that Public on Syntagma currently have a three for the price of two offer on a selection of about twenty English-language paperback titles from UK publishers. Amazingly, they are all priced at 6.90 euros despite the prices ranging from 8 to 11 GB pounds. (I don’t think sterling has fallen quite that far yet!) I came away with three books cover-priced 24 pounds for just 13 euros (that’s with the 3-for-2 offer plus the fact that on the shop’s computer they were priced 40 cents lower than on the price label).

Note from Kat: Very good tip, thank you! 🙂

Where could I find a place which would sell contemporary literature (novels, biographies, philosophy, etc.) that is written in GREEK? My wife wants so badly to keep/grow her Greek language skills that I would love to get her a half dozen books to keep her fresh with the language.

Thank you in advance.

Kat Reply:
May 31st, 2009 at 22:21

All bookshops on the list have a wide variety of books in Greek on every subject, and some ship outside Greece; you can click the highlighted/underlined names to be taken to their websites. The biggest chain is Eletheroudakis.

I’ve been living on Crete for the past year, am leaving in September, and a persistent ex-boyfriend has lumped me with a HUGE stack of lovely hardback books, stuff by W. Somerset Maugham, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Chaucer, you name it. Don’t wish to sound mercenary but I have enjoyed them fully, and now really need MONEY more than I need an additional 20kgs of luggage.

I know you’ve already made good points about ebay etc, but I really don’t get enough internet access for that to be a viable option and as for English newspapers etc….. I don’t even know if there is such a thing here and honestly just want them off my hands with a minimum of fuss, yet can’t quite bear to dump them at the hostel down the road.

Kept hoping I’d stumble across a nice smelly little 2nd hand bookshop, sell them after much negotiation for 4.3 euros apiece, and walk off empty handed leaving some other stranger to swoon over the inscriptions. However I now realise no such place exists… for reasons both personal and cultural would be mutually embarrassing if I tried to give some or all of them away to Greek friends… I’m really just at a bit of a loss.

The university had occurred to me, seemed like the place where they’d do the most good, and wouldn’t care if I didn’t get a cent for them if it meant they’d go to a good home…. But you say they won’t have them!! How Greek, bless them one and all 🙂

Even if I get no helpful suggestions about where to sell books in response to this post, I’d just like to let you know that your website has been a great resource (and also a great source of amusement!) for me while living here. Cheers xx

Kat Reply:
July 15th, 2009 at 21:49

Hi Ellie, I’ve only spent a limited amount of time on Crete and don’t know it well enough to make further suggestions, so I’ll have to leave it to my readers. I understand your dilemma though, as I wouldn’t want to dump or leave behind my good hardbacks either. If we were in another country, you could donate them and take a write-off or at least get them a good home; but Greece is another story.

After all this time, I’m really glad you said hello and left a comment. Too bad it sounds like I may lose you as a reader, however. Glad that I could be useful and amusing. Thank you especially for acknowledging the latter. 🙂

I finally broke down and bought a Kindle this past winter while in the States, and it’s completely changed my in-Greece English-language reading habits. No more scrounging for whatever the local periptero has (as much as I enjoy a summer junk novel as the next person) or waiting many weeks for a shipment from the States (once I ordered a book from Amazon.com for a title that hadn’t been released in the UK yet and it arrived a few days after I’d left Greece for the States again…!). The device itself is pricey, but then you can buy a gazillion books online (you do need access to a computer to load the books onto the device, of course).

Just read this and now regret ordering a Kindle from amazon.com in the US. It looks like I’m likely to pay customs charges on it(?) The item was about 280 dollars and is being sent by priority international courier. Oh dear, if I’d known I wouldn’t have ordered. Can I just refuse delivery and let it go back to them, and after that get a refund (perhaps through fibbing that it never arrived?)

By the way, I’ve never had a problem getting books delivered because they’re cheap. I recommend play.com and the bookdepository.co.uk because both of these offer free postage. In all but a small number of cases they are cheaper than amazon, and if you look at the prices on play.trade you can usually get a paperback book for around 3, 4 or 5 euros delivered, inclusive of postage (it’ll be second hand usually).

BTW, Jason if you are still around, did you have to pay customs duty on your kindle?

Kat Reply:
January 4th, 2010 at 20:23

You can refuse delivery and let it go back to them; delivery fees will be deducted from your refund. I don’t encourage dishonesty, so fibbing is a personal choice.

The source I recommended (Better World Books) is a flat $3.97 worldwide delivery for any second-hand book of any edition and weight. When people offer “free delivery,” I can assure you that they’ve built costs into the book price to cover expenses.

Thanks for the advice, it’s made me feel a little better. Do you happen to know whether, after I have refused delivery, the courier is then bound to return the item? In other words, is it guaranteed that the kindle will be returned in order for me to get my refund? I would be more than a little worried if there is a possibility that they won’t get it back to amazon, that it will end up lying in the airport remainders bin as mentioned above, leaving me without a refund.

As for free delivery being incorporated into a book’s price, this is certainly true, particularly on ebay for example. I don’t think it is on play.com’s playtrade though because their books are, as I say, often around 3 or 4 euros postage inclusive, and these sometimes include heavy books or hardbacks (I’ve order, for example, hard back nature encyclopedias, coffee table books, the Guinness Book of Records etc). How they can afford to send them and still make money, I have no idea. That said, a flat $3.97 sounds pretty unbeatable and I will be checking that out if my kindle does eventually go back to its sender.

Thanks again for the advice, and if you could put my mind at rest about the return of the kindle I’d be most grateful.

Note from Kat: The courier will notify the sender and ask them if they’d like to take it back and pay for its return, which is why I said they’d deduct the ‘return’ charges from your refund. If they refuse to take it back, then it will sit at the airport in the reject bin.

To find out for sure, you need to contact Amazon; I cannot speak on their behalf.

Just wanted to chime in with a more recent experience. But I’d like to say in advance that not much has changed from the above experiences.

We used our mail forwarding service to send us our mail (1st and last time we do that). In that medium sized box there was our paper mail, a t-shirt (gift from a friend) and a DVD of no commercial value. We paid $54 to have the package sent via DHL. That alone put the package above the amount that triggers the customs to be on alert. So in the end, we had to pay an additional 123 euros for customs to get our package and it took 1.5 months to get it.

A couple of months afterward, we had another package sent from a family member via USPS (having learned our lesson). The package contained a part for a grill that needed repair, some Splenda packages, and some razors cartridges. Everything was listed on the form, but a value was put that was somewhat less than what we paid for it. The shipping was about $23. This package got thru in less than 2 weeks and with no customs fees.
Lesson learned.

BTW-we love our Kindle. It makes it so much easier to get books (especially novels) in English.

Just thought you might like to know that you can order books, CDs, DVDs, toys, electronics and more from Amazon.co.uk and shipping is free for orders over £25 and you can pay in euros.

Kat Reply:
November 4th, 2011 at 08:45

Thanks for the reminder. I made the addition.

Greetings from Toronto, Canada

I wanted to order some books from a greek online bookstore based in Athens, which boasts 80 000 titles. Anyway I tried contacting the Greek Post office and then I read through much of your strike news but could not find any info as to whether strikes are currently (like right now) affecting the post office (ie are postal workers striking currently?).

I wanted to get some greek language books for my parents for Christmas but even though I still got plenty of time I dont want to order if it’s not wise right now.

thank you
George

PS I read your about me page too. California is the second place in the world I want to visit after Greece when I finally finish school (and France is the third).

PPS California North (wine region) –not hollywood! :oD

Kat Reply:
November 4th, 2011 at 10:57

Most public sector strikes affecting post offices in Greece only last one or two days. Therefore, I don’t foresee any long-term problems if you want to place an order. Most issues arise when the seller is irresponsible or the recipient lies about the package, as mail service on the whole tends to be very reliable. I’m sure your parents would be pleased to receive something from you.

California is a fine place, but of course I’m biased. I think everyone should go to northern California at least once in their lives because there’s a lot to see, do, drink and eat. Do go. France also has a lot to offer.