The single greatest collection of Greek antiquity in the world — the Mask of Agamemnon, the Antikythera Mechanism, the Artemision Bronze. A 1889 neoclassical building in Exarcheia, four hours minimum.
The National Archaeological Museum holds the most important collection of ancient Greek art and artefacts anywhere — the great pre-Classical, Classical, Hellenistic and Cycladic masterworks of the country, in a single 1889 neoclassical building in Exarcheia.
The collection is so deep that the only sensible visit is a long one — four hours minimum. Plan around the room sequence: Cycladic (rooms 6, 7) — the great 5,000-year-old marble figurines, the harp player, the flute player, the cross-armed standing women that influenced Brancusi and Modigliani. Mycenaean (room 4) — the gold of Heinrich Schliemann’s 1876 grave-shaft excavation: the so-called Mask of Agamemnon, the bronze daggers, the gold cups. Sculpture (rooms 7–34) — the Artemision Bronze (a Zeus or a Poseidon, 460 BC, recovered from a shipwreck), the Antikythera Youth (340 BC bronze), the Jockey of Artemision (a tiny bronze rider on a galloping horse, 150 BC), the marble Aphrodite-Eros-and-Pan (100 BC). Antikythera (room 38) — the Antikythera Mechanism, the world’s oldest analogue computer (150 BC), used to predict eclipses and Olympic Games dates. Thera Frescoes (upstairs) — the wall paintings from Akrotiri on Santorini, sealed under volcanic ash in 1600 BC, as bright as the day they were painted. The crowds are far thinner than at the Acropolis Museum.
A four-hour museum-led morning.
A small Exarcheia espresso bar five minutes from the museum entrance; pastry; the day's papers.
Start with rooms 4–7 — the gold of Mycenae, the marble Cycladic figurines. Forty-five minutes.
Rooms 7–34 — the kouroi, the kore, the Severe-Style, the Artemision Bronze, the Jockey, the Aphrodite-Pan group. Ninety minutes.
Twenty-minute break in the central courtyard café; reset.
Antikythera Mechanism room, then upstairs to the Thera frescoes and the painted vase collection. Sixty minutes.
Five-minute walk south to Salero or Yiantes — modern-Greek room, two-hour lunch. €25 per head.
If you have stamina, a sixty-minute return for whatever you missed — the museum is too big for one visit.
On foot, within fifteen minutes.
Five minutes' walk south — the bohemian neighbourhood; bookshops; record stores; the better budget restaurants; political graffiti as art. Detail on the Exarcheia walk.
Eight minutes' walk south-east — small park rising above Exarcheia, locals' sunset spot, free.
Three minutes' walk south — the 1862 neoclassical National Technical University, where the November 1973 student uprising against the Junta began.
Fifteen minutes' walk south-east — the upmarket gallery-and-restaurant district. Detail on the Lycabettus & Kolonaki page.
Eight minutes' walk south — the central transport plaza; metro lines 1 and 2 cross here.
Tell us a little about the trip you want — pace, who's coming, how you'd like to spend your mornings. We'll build the days.
