Athens National Archaeological Museum

 Viking Athens to Rome Cruise

Athens Archaeological Museum

January 29, 2026

This mornings tour was a bus tour of Athens and a tour of the National Archaeological Museum.  The bus tour wound around quite a bit of Athens however it seemed like I was on the wrong side of the bus to see very much and it was so rainy and overcast there wasn't much to see anyways.  The local architecture is very different from the rest of Europe as it primarily consists of 4 to 5 story apartment buildings which all have balconies which stretch across the entire building.  

The highlight of the tour was the National Archaeological Museum.  It is a huge building which was constructed in the early 1960's.  The displays cover all eras of Greek history starting in about 1300 BC and continuing through to the end of the Roman era about 500 AD.  It also covers artifacts from across all of Greece and the islands.  The museum was quite busy with a lot of school tour groups.   I took 98 photos in the museum but have only shown a few. The bronze statute of Zeus which is much photographed. The bronze navigational dial which allegedly proves that there was alien intervention (Ya right).  A marble statue of Pan getting friendly with a beautiful young lady.  I have often wondered why so many of the statues are broken.  Today the tour guide had the answer, and that is that invading Prussian and Turkish armies smashed and buried the statues.  

Out front of the museum is a 500 year old olive tree, which is a direct descendant of the olive tree given to the citizens of Athens by Athena.  

Back on the bus and back to the bus for yet another huge buffet meal.  The chicken schnitzel was not nearly as good as mine. 

 Once again we dodged the rain as we were in the museum when the down pour occurred.  

A very fun and informative tour.