The Parthenon hall
The frieze at temple scale, the original in its glass.
Yair-haklai — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jean Housen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jean Housen — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jean Housen — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Acropolis Museum ranks with the new millennium's greatest: glass and light at the rock's foot (2009), built as an architectural argument — its top hall arranges the Parthenon frieze at the temple's true dimensions and angle, with the real Parthenon in the glass beyond: the most eloquent "return our marbles" ever addressed to London. The treasures are the rock's own originals: the five true Caryatids (the sixth in London, her place left eloquently empty), the archaic Korai with their surviving smiles and colours, the pediment sculptures — and the entrance floats on glass over an excavated Athenian quarter you descend into. The restaurant with its Parthenon terrace is the museum's second face — and Friday stretches into evening. It is the Acropolis' other half, incomplete without it: five minutes between the two gates.
The frieze at temple scale, the original in its glass.
The five real maidens, laser-cleaned before you.
Old Athens beneath the glass floor.
Dionysiou Areopagitou 15, 11742 Athens
The Ilias Lalaounis Jewellery MuseumA jewellery museum on the southern slope of the Acropolis devoted to the work of2 minutes walk4.6
Arch of HadrianA lone marble arch about eighteen metres high standing at the roadside between t5 minutes walk4.5
The Acropolis & ParthenonThe Acropolis is Western civilisation's literal cornerstone: the sacred rock cro5 minutes walk4.7
Temple of Olympian Zeus & Hadrian's ArchThe Olympieion was the largest temple in all Greece — and its longest labour: be5 minutes walk4.3
AnafiotikaA complete Greek island village hidden beneath the Acropolis rock, two minutes f6 minutes walkBefore, you understand; after, you confirm — the real trade is thermal: in summer make it your conditioned midday between the rock's two edges. Two full hours — three for readers.