Athens, Greece
Two other smaller museums in Athens made most of the lists
for top attractions in the city – the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Byzantine
& Christian Museum, both located along the museum row east of the
parliament building and focusing on aspects of Greek history not fully covered
elsewhere in the city. So why not go if you have the time in town?
The Museum of Cycladic Art seems somewhat inaccurately named
since only one of its four floors focuses on it, the others being Ancient Greek
art, and Cypriot Art. This is all really
old stuff from the millennia before the height of classical Greek civilization,
some dating from 2,500 B.C. Most interesting are some of the 4,000-year-old
figurines found on the Cyclades islands, which look almost abstractly modern in
their simplicity.
Travelers in Greece tend to focus on its ancient history,
but there is much of interest in the country dating from the Byzantine and
Medieval eras, art which is, of course, overwhelmingly Christian in
content. On the museum row (which is
also the embassy row) along Leof Vasillasis Sofias Street east of Parliament,
there is an entire museum dedicated to art and artefact of the era, the
Byzantine and Christian Museum, one of the largest in the world dedicated
solely to the subject.
2025-05-23