The double St. George
The two-faced icon — the centuries' fine riddle.
Marsyas — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Joyofmuseums — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Francesco Bini — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Francesco Bini — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Byzantine Museum carries the thousand years the antiquities route drops: pagan Athens turning church by church, to Constantinople's fall and after — the world's richest Byzantine collection (25,000 pieces) inside the Florentine Villa Ilissia the Duchess of Plaisance built (1848). The route is a conversion tale: the From the Ancient World to Byzantium halls show Athens changing gods — pagan carvings turned crosses — then the icon summit: the double-faced St. George, Constantinople's mosaics and goldwork, gilded manuscripts, church frescoes transplanted with their vaults. Its terraced garden of olives, ruins and café is the quiet quarter's secret — with the Benaki on the same pavement: the complete after-antiquity pair.
The two-faced icon — the centuries' fine riddle.
Gods turning crosses — Athens changing its sky.
Vasilissis Sofias 22, 10675 Athens
War MuseumGreece's national army museum, in a Brutalist concrete building of the 1970s on 1 minute walk4.6
Museum of Cycladic ArtAn elegant private museum in the **Kolonaki** district, holding one of the most 3 minutes walk4.6
National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST)Greece's national museum of contemporary art, known by its Greek acronym **EMST*3 minutes walk4.3
The Benaki Museum of Greek CultureThe Benaki is Greece's only unbroken story: Stone Age pottery to the 1821 indepe5 minutes walk4.6
National GalleryGreece's principal museum of **modern Greek art**, reopened in **2021** after an6 minutes walk4.7It is a civilisation's chapter, not a creed's lesson: Byzantium was the thousand-year empire beside the Caliphate, arguing and trading arts with it — and the ornament, gold and craft here read to a Muslim eye with strange familiarity. Lovers of Istanbul's museums find the other shore.