This is post five of sixteen of our summer trip to Greece. Check out our other posts in the series here:

• Greece Lightning: Heading to Greece
• Acropolis for Breakfast: Staying at the Hilton Athens
• Starting at the Top: The Acropolis
• Oompa! Eating Athens
• Taking it Indoors: Athen’s Museums
• Athen’s Other Sites
• Room with a View: Staying in Santorini
• Santorini’s Spectacular Sights: Part 1
• Santorini’s Spectacular Sights: Part 2
• Looking for Santorini’s Best Eats
• It’s All Greek to Me: Heading to Naxos
• There’s a Meat Town in Naxos!
• Shots! Shots! ShotsShotsShots! Heading to Mykonos
• A Delightful Day Trip to Delos
• The Trashy Side of the Greek Islands
• Bling Bling y’all! Upgraded at the Hyatt Regency Montreal

I have a mixed relationship with museums. I love walking through them, but scarcely read anything. This means that an average museum trip for Mrs. Selfish and I is usually less than 2 hours.

We’ve blazed through the Uffizi in Florence (where we almost missed the Birth of Venus), the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London, and the Museum of Natural History in NYC, to name a few. Undoubtedly we missed much.

So when it came to Athens, I was debating whether or not we should even head indoors. With 3 full days in Athens, however, it became clear that we were running out of things to do, so we decided to head to the National Archaeological Museum and the Byzantine Museum. Good thing too, as both proved to be well worth the trip.

The National Archaeological Museum

Considered (by Wikipedia) to be one of the greatest museums in the world, the National Archaeological Museum has one of the largest collections of ancient artifacts I’ve ever seen.

I love me some Greek statues, so this was well worth the trip. It was also nice to actually see the statues in Greece, as opposed to other European museums where they were “on loan” or had been looted from Greece hundreds of years ago. Entrance to the museum was 7 euros per person. Continue reading →