Sunday, June 26, 2011

National Archaeological Museum of Greece

We decided that the first sightseeing for the day would be to go to the National Archaeological Museum, as that was the only thing anywhere near the hotel.  It was really interesting.  Rather like the British Museum, in that there were galleries and galleries of exhibits, and not much information above the little labels for each thing.  But what things there were!  What really amazed me was some of the Bronze Age things, and even Neolithic statues and pottery.  Far more elaborate than anything I’ve seen coming out of the British Isles from that period.  And then I saw the remains of a bowl that had a rather primitive looking picture on it (see below).  I read the label and it dated from the 12th or 13th century BC.  That’s at least 3300 years ago!  Tommy’s favourite section were the Classical Era statues, and Andy’s favourites were the bronze statues.

From there we walked several blocks (several very shabby blocks) to the Metro station, and caught a train to the old Plaka area.  That was more like I wanted to see!  We had a nice lunch in a little cafĂ©/restaurant.  I chose some very traditional local dishes – some fried greek cheese and some stuffed  vine leaves with an egg and lemon sauce.  Yum.  But Andy and Tommy had less traditional meals – swordfish steaks and shrimps respectively.

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