Saturday, May 27
Our cruise ended early this morning and we took a taxi back into Athens, so we had most of the day to explore the city. We went to the new Acropolis Museum. The first level is items found on the hill of the Acropolis. Surprising number and variety of items, lots of pottery. Next floor is items from the first Acropolis, destroyed by the Persians in 600 something BC. Many large sculptures. Surprising how much of this survived. The top floor is the frieze, pediment and metopes of the current Parthenon. They are all here displayed as they would have been in place. This level is even oriented exactly the same as the Parthenon, which you can see through the big windows. Where they don’t have the original, usually because it’s in the British Museum, there is a plaster copy. The message is clear: all of these pieces belong here, there’s a place for them and we can take care of them.