Acropolis Museum and the Panathenaic Stadium

Hello there! Stay and read my Athens, Greece travel diary. This is day 2.

Day 1 can be found here
Day 3 can be found here
Day 4 can be found here
Day 5 can be found here
Day 6 can be found here

My daughter and I took a two week trip, and in the first week we travelled through Romania, then we took a flight from Bucharest to Athens for the second week. We travelled in July, and needless to say, it was quite a hot experience! But so worth it.

I hope you enjoy reading about the trip as much as I enjoyed visiting!

Our accommodation is conveniently located right across the road from the Acropolis Museum, and that is our first agenda item of the day! We want to go in the morning because it is less crowded, so we get up and get ready to go out.

But first, breakfast! On our way to the museum, we stop at a cafe and check out their menu. I seriously love how the restaurants here display their menus outside of the restaurant. That way you can make an informed decision about where you want to eat.

The breakfast and brunch menu looks amazing. Amy and I both choose the same thing: pancakes with eggs, bacon, cheese and maple syrup. We also order a yummy drink each; passion fruit smoothie for Amy and an iced chocolate for me. I haven’t had tea in over a week now, what’s wrong with me?!

Breakfast is absolutely decadent, possibly tending towards a bit too much. But it’s so delicious! It could do without the cheese in my opinion, but it’s not a strong enough opinion to stop eating it.

We can’t finish it all, it’s way too much. So we waddle off to the museum, full of food and energy to see the museum.

We stand in the line to buy tickets as I haven’t pre-bought them online. The line moves pretty quickly, surprisingly! We are inside in about 10 minutes. The museum is filling up and I’d hate to see it busy! One of the things that I keep noticing is how many Aussies are here! I keep hearing the accent everywhere we go. It’s quite comforting, really.

We enter the museum and immediately I am enthralled by the displays. I want to read every plaque and write-up. I settle for taking photos of these so I can revisit the information later. Now, this museum only has information about the Acropolis, so it’s not as in-depth about the culture and society as an ethnography museum would have.

As I am walking, I look down and see that the floor is see-through. I can see down to the excavated area below. And then I look up. And I wonder how the architect thought that would be a good idea…

Nonetheless, it’s still freaking awesome! Everything is displayed so well and logical. After the ancient gallery (where you aren’t allowed to take photos), the Nike gallery starts. The guide yesterday told us that her name is pronounced like Nicky. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say Nike the same way.

The Nike gallery has amazing pieces taken from her temple atop of the Acropolis. It even has the original friezes.

After we see the Nike gallery, we make our way to the Caryatids. The Caryatids are six women who create the columns for the porch at the Erechtheion, the temple where Poseidon and Athena fought on the Acropolis.

I may have mentioned yesterday about the Ottomans selling Greek items when they occupied the country. Well, the museum only has five of the original six columns. Can anyone take a guess as to where the sixth one is located? If you said the British museum, then you are correct! Well done! The Greek government is fighting to have her returned, so let’s watch this space.

We then go to the top floor of the museum where there Parthenon has been replicated using some of the original and copied items. It’s amazing the way they’ve recreated it. I am in absolute awe at the ingenuity of this gallery.

One of my favourite pieces is the statue that sat above the gable on the east end of the Parthenon. It has spirals that (I think) mean life. It’s is beautiful and inspired by nature.

Another great piece is statue of perhaps Aphrodite that looks like it is crying. It’s from the 2nd century CE but is a replica of a statue from 5th-4th century BCE. It appears to be crying because the eyelashes were made of bronze. The bronze has oxidised over the years and has leaked the colour down her face, looking like tears.

We then exit the main museum building, exit through the gift shop, of course. Beneath the museum is an excavation site. Now, when you are inside the museum there are glass panels on the floor so you can see into the excavation pits. I was looking at the people below wondering if they could see me. I decided to look upwards and sure enough there are glass panels above me. And yes, you can see straight through them. So I got some lovely views up peoples skirts. Who on earth thought of this as a design element?!

Anyway, back to the excavations. The ancient neighbourhood shows the activities here from around 3500 BCE. So yeah, a looong time ago. The display of the artefacts is done so well again.

There is a small gallery here that has statues and information on some of the Greek gods. It is another favourite part of the museum. I spend so much time in this section because the information is so interesting. Once I’ve finished looking in this gallery, I go find Amy (she went through it all a lot more quickly than I did) and we head back to our accommodation.

We have our afternoon nap because the heat is too great to be doing much outside. So instead, we rest and recover. About 3.30, we get ready and head back out again. It’s still about 35°.

Our walk to the Panathenaic Stadium is long and hot and uncomfortable along a busy road. But I am so excited to be going to the stadium that started the modern Olympic Games.

We purchase our tickets and head in. I am like a kid in a candy shop with a big grin on my face. I immediately go out into the track and look at the stelae that have the names of the cities that have hosted the Olympics.

Of course I then make my way to the dais to have my photo taken (thanks Amy!). After running for about 5 seconds, I think that’s enough, time to go into the museum.

We walk through the tunnel to visit the Modern Olympic Games History Museum. The tunnel is nice and cool after the heat coming off the very stark arena. The museum has some fantastic information boards referencing the Ancient Greek games. It also details the story behind the marathon.

Further inside the museum there are posters from all the Olympic Games, as well as the torches. One of the first ones you see as you walk up the stairs is Sydney 2000. We look at the posters, Mexico 1968 is my favourite. Then we hit up the gift shop.

I may have purchased myself a small souvenir. Just a sweet replica of the 1896 medal! So yeah, that’s me with my Olympic medal.

All up we spent about an hour here. I could have stayed longer reading all the boards of information, but I know Amy had had enough. So, we start to make our way back to the accommodation.

There’s still one more place for us to visit today, and that’s only because we have to walk past it anyway, so we might as well go in. Zeus’s temple. Firstly, we sit at the cafe and enjoy a cold drink for a while. It’s still ridiculously hot and the site has very little shade. So, we cool down for a bit before going out into the full sun.

There is not much left of the temple. I don’t know if that’s because it was left to decline because the people of Athens weren’t entirely happy with it, or for some other reason. One of the columns fell over during a storm in 1852. It must have been some storm because these columns are huge!

We don’t spend much time here, because there really isn’t much to look at anymore. So, we then make our way back to the restaurant area to find something for dinner (we skipped lunch because we were still full from breakfast!).

We come across a cute restaurant selling gyros and I really want to try it, so our decision has been made for us, really. In addition, we order a sesame seed crusted feta cheese that’s been baked and covered in honey. Yes. It is as absolutely delicious as it sounds.

After a short wait, our gyros arrives too. Our plates are piled high with meat and chips. We eat the meat down a bit and then try to make them wrap style with the pita bread, tzatziki and tomatoes. Seriously, the flavours are amazing and it is so delicious. I can’t eat it all because the meal is so large.

Once we’d finished, we started the stroll back to our accommodation. The evening is lovely and the area is lively. We browse a couple of stores on the walk home. When we arrive back at our building, we once again stop by the shop next door and have a drink. Tonight it is a cider for me and a Coke Zero for Amy.

Another fantastic day.

And if you would like to see how this day looked, head over to my YouTube video

More journal entries from this trip

Greece Travel Journal / Day 1
Greece Travel Journal / Day 3
Greece Travel Journal / Day 4
Greece Travel Journal / Day 5
Greece Travel Journal / Day 6

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