My husband and I are going to Greece and Italy this coming September. We will be staying on Crete for 3 days and connecting back through Athens on our way to Florence. My plan was to take a morning flight from Crete into Athens so that we could plan a trip downtown to see the Acropolis and anything else of interest before heaidng back to the airport for our evening flight to Florence, but am I crazy for thinking this?

1) First, it turns out our hotel (SPG Blue Palace) is an hour to an hour and a half from the HER airport on Crete. So, in order to make the 8:30 or 9:00am flight options people are suggesting we leave our hotel by 5:30 or 6 am to allow enough time for the drive, returning the rental car, and check in. Is HER that bad of an airport at 7:30 or 8:00 am on a Saturday late in September (22nd to be exact)?

2) I saw someone post in another forum that it took them 70 minutes to go from the Athens airport to the Acroplis via the metro. The Athens metro site says it is 45 minutes, but that must not allow for stop times or something. Is the metro the best way to go?

3) I'm thinking/hoping we'll be able to check in for our evening flight when we check in at HER and check our bags all the way through. I have a note into Aegean to find out. Anyone done that between Aegean and AlItalia? I know it all just comes down to if they have a baggage agreement. It would certainly save us some time when we're heading back to the airport if we already had our boarding passes and if our bags can be checked through.

4) There is an 11:00 flight from Crete that would get us in around noon, so we could get a bit more sleep, but I figure we need to allow at least 2.5 hours for the round trip metro ride, plus 1-1.5 hours to get checked back in (if we can't check our bags through from Crete), so that would only leave us 2.5 hours downtown...which doesn't seem like much.

Am I crazy to think we can make this work? As much as I hate to say it, I think that doing one of the morning flights is going to be our best bet. Any other tips or advice on how to make this work? Also, what else in Athens would you particularly recommend given our small time window.

Thanks so much!
Susan