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Benaki Museum Review

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Benaki Museum

Address: Koumbari 1, Kolonaki, Athens
Phone: 210/367-1000
www.benaki.gr

Category: Museums/Galleries
Location: Kolonaki

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Fodor's Review:

Greece's oldest private museum, established in 1926 by an illustrious Athenian family, the Benaki was one of the first to place emphasis on Greece's later heritage at a time when many archaeologists were destroying Byzantine artifacts to access ancient objects. The collection (more than 20,000 items are on display in 36 rooms, and that's only a sample of the holdings) moves chronologically from the ground floor upward, from prehistory to the formation of the modern Greek state. You might see anything from a 5,000-year-old hammered gold bowl to an austere Byzantine icon of the Virgin Mary to Lord Byron's pistols to the Nobel medals awarded to poets George Seferis and Odysseus Elytis. Some exhibits are just plain fun—the re-creation of a Kozani (Macedonian town) living room; a tableau of costumed mannequins; a Karaghiozi shadow puppet piloting a toy plane—all contrasted against the marble and crystal-chandelier grandeur of the Benaki home. The mansion was designed by Anastassios Metaxas, the architect who helped restore the Panathenaic Stadium. The Benaki's gift shop, a destination in itself, tempts with exquisitely reproduced ceramics and jewelry. The second-floor café serves coffee and snacks, with a few daily specials, on a veranda overlooking the National Garden.

Cost: EUR 6, free Thurs.
Open: Mon., Wed., Fri., and Sat. 9-5, Thurs. 9 AM-midnight, Sun. 9-3
Metro: Syntagma

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