Athens, Greece

We had tickets to the Acropolis Museum at 2pm today, so had the morning to tour around. We walked back up towards Varvakios Market, in search of the spice market on Evripidou. It was just a handful of stores, with proper lids over the spices, and not really photogenic. We also looked for the fruit and vegetable market, but didn’t see anything.

We shopped for some clothing suitable for 5-15C. Typically when we travel it’s in hot climates and we have appropriate travel gear; we’re not used to this spring weather. We dropped off our purchases at the hotel, and then zipped over to the museum.

Along the way we grabbed sandwiches at 72H, and walked a bit further to the parkette at the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates to eat. The sandwich was amazing, mortadella with pistachio pesto on a ciabatta. There was also a soft cheese, maybe burrata. Hard to tell with so many soft white Greek cheeses. (Maybe not so hard to tell if you know your cheeses, just hard for me).

Anyways finished our sandwiches and then walked over to the museum. We weren’t sure which side the entrance was; I chose poorly and we walked 270° to get there.

First we accidentally went through the Excavation Museum, ruins of an ancient Athenian neighbourhood from the Byzantine period. It’s included in the Acropolis Museum ticket but it’s a separate entrance, not connected to each other. We didn’t spend much time there cause we wanted to see the main event.

There was no line up to enter the museum proper (it was just after 2pm by now). Scanned our tickets, checked our bags, and we were in! There’s some smaller artefacts on the 1st floor as you enter; we skipped past these for later.

Had an espresso and cake at the café on the 2nd floor. It was self-seating. We chose a random table, and were berated by the waitstaff for not choosing a seat with an amazing view of the Acropolis. We hadn’t even noticed it until the waitstaff pointed it out! So we picked a better seat and enjoyed our espresso with a view.

Onto museum-ing! We had to show our tickets again to exit the café and reenter the museum (I think you can visit just the café). Luckily I hadn’t left my ticket in my checked backpack.

We walked up the stairs to the 3rd floor. This is the best part of the museum, and one of the best laid out I’ve seen in the world. The interior is built to the dimensions of the Parthenon, and contains 40 blocks of the actual Parthenon frieze. Another 56 blocks are in the British Museum, part of the Elgin Marbles. There’s an outer ring containing what remains of the metopes. (Here’s a good diagram from Wikipedia explaining friezes vs metopes).

Visible in the background is the actual Acropolis. There was hardly anyone else at the museum (maybe a couple dozen people on the floor) and it was amazing. One of the best museums I’ve seen.

We took our time checking out the friezes and metopes and other architectural features on display. Overall it took us a couple hours to get through.

Walked back to our hotel, relaxed, cleaned up, and went out for dinner at Karamanlidika. We had stopped by earlier in the day during our search for spices and made a reservation for 8pm. As we walked to dinner, other restaurants looked empty-ish, as would be expected on a Monday in off-season. However when we got to Karamanlidika, it was packed! We would not have got seated without the reservation. It’s a meat and cheese store by day, and a hopping restaurant by night. Our table was in a heated & covered alley between buildings. The food was excellent, homemade traditional Greek food. Another successful day in Athens!