Stay in Athens and spend time visiting the city. Plenty to see.

One ticket package for the major attractions: Ministry of Culture and Sports Acropolis of Athens 30 euro, available at any of the locations to visit. Do that and combine it with a visit to the Acropolis museum and the time will be over fast enough.

One tip for the Acropolis: on the first day visit all other sites and buy your ticket there. On the 2nd day be at the main gate of the Acropolis at opening time and immediately go to the top. I did it like this 2 years ago when in Athens and was able to enjoy an empty Acropolis for about 20-30 minutes. Even on the photo's of the visit of Obama, 2 days after me and for who the entire site was closed off, there were more people than on my photos.

During the day, I don't think you can easily make photos like this:




About Athens itself: define what you mean by bad? I stayed for 4 nights and didn't experience anything bad beside seeing some 'vandalism' (graffiti).