National Archaeological Museum and the First Cemetery of Athens

Hello there! Stay and read my Athens, Greece travel diary. This is day 4.

Day 1 can be found here
Day 2 can be found here
Day 3 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!

We’re a little travel weary, so I decide it’s a sleep in day and then some more easy sightseeing. At 10.30 am we get ready and head out to breakfast. We go to the same place as Monday, as they had really delicious breakfast and brunch options. Amy chooses the avocado toast, and I go with the Greek omelette. My omelette is huge! I am so full after I eat it.

Our first sightseeing location for the day is the National Archaeology Museum. I check out the Uber rates and it’s about 6-8€ to get there. I then go over to a waiting taxi and he says the road is busy and it’s going to cost 25€. Nah. I think I’ll just book the Uber.

We get picked up in a taxi that is using the Uber app; I actually think all the taxis are on the app because it only shows taxis when you are booking a ride. Which is smart of the government because it didn’t decimate the taxi industry. Anyway, we get in the car and it’s nice and cool for the 15 minute journey. It’s going to be another very warm day today.

Soon enough we arrive at the museum. We pay the entrance fee of 12€ for me and half that for Amy. There are some really interesting galleries. I especially like the Cycladic Civilisation gallery. It has some interesting artefacts starting from 3200 BCE.

My favourite items are the women figurines who look like they’ve just gotten out of the shower, the frying pans, and the pot that has many little pots making it scary for those people who don’t like holes.

There is also a pretty cool funeral gallery which has items from 19 different graves. I think the funerary masks are fascinating. These graves would have belong to people in the upper class due to the volume of gold they used. These graves are dated 15-16th centuries BCE.

We then move into the statue galleries. I find these a little boring except for the one with Aphrodite, Pan and Eros. Aphrodite appears to be getting hit on by the goat man himself, Pan. So she’s holding her shoe like she’s going to slap him with it. We should still be able to do the same thing today, 2000 years later.

Then Amy is in the technology gallery looking at the earliest computer in the world, the Antikythera Mechanism, which was used to predict astronomical locations and eclipses. Not bad for something created around 150 BCE.

Next up is the Egyptian gallery. Now, after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, the Greeks ruled under the Ptolemy dynasty with Cleopatra being the last pharaoh. So, the gallery here was filled with wonderful artefacts. This was probably my favourite gallery. It could be that I really love Egyptian history, especially as they loved ancient bin chickens.

We then go upstairs to the final two galleries, which seem to be just filled with pots, oh and a couple of skeletons. But by now we were done. So we exited via the gift shop and ordered an uber to take us back to our accommodation.

On the way back, we check out a store and get some gelato. Passionfruit for me and chocolate for Amy. Mine was deliciously refreshing.

Then it’s power nap city.

In the late afternoon we get ready again to go out. This time to the First Cemetery of Athens. It’s a bit of a walk, but the heat is lessening so it’s tolerable. Along the way we come across a Nerdom store and we check it out. It is seriously super fun in there. The music playing is top tier. Firstly, it’s the phantom of the opera, followed by some instrumental theme songs, like ET. Seriously, such an awesome vibe.

We carry on to the cemetery and start to look around. Unfortunately, my signal is bad so I can’t use Google Translate to help me read the inscriptions. So I walk around for a bit looking for cats and cool headstones. There’s one in particular that I’ll probably have nightmares about, but the rest were amazing.

Afterwards, based on a tiktok recommendation, we go to the Empiro Grill to get a gyros. Apparently, it is top rated for gyros. The cook makes it immediately and before we’ve even grabbed drinks out of the fridge, he’s ready to hand the gyros over to us. Talk about fast service! The gyros are delicious and the pita bread is so soft. 5 stars for the food but the place is more like a takeaway shop, so there was nowhere to eat it properly.

Then the slow walk back to our accommodation to rest up and be ready for tomorrow’s adventures.

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

Check back soon for the video!

More journal entries from this trip

Greece Travel Journal / Day 1
Greece Travel Journal / Day 2
Greece Travel Journal / Day 3
Greece Travel Journal / Day 5
Greece Travel Journal / Day 6

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