Greece-Day 2-National Archaeological Museum

Another cold day so we planned another museum to keep warm.   Our destination was the National Archaeological Museum.  We took a leisurely route that included haircuts for the boys and some shopping for the girls.  Katie literally ran when she saw a Forever 21 store..I guess she hasn't seen one since we have lived in Belgium.  We joked that her coach wishes she would run that fast on the basketball court!

We passed the University of Athens and the National Library on our way, beautiful buildings.

Here are a few photos...

I liked these guys going up the library steps!

He was at the top of the steps.  Sadly the library had closed before we arrived so we didn't get to peek inside!

The museum is located in a part of town called Exarchia, or the Anarchy district.  We were suprised to see that as you walk into the area right in front of this museum, there are police officers standing by in riot gear and also police vans parked with guys ready to respond at any moment.  Here is a picture of the police bus.

It was quite strange to see this right outside the National Museum!  The grounds outside of the museum were pretty run down too, so we were wondering what the inside was going to be like and if we had just made a freezing cold walk for nothing.  Thankfully the inside was most impressive!  There was no kids sticker hunt this time, so while Greg kept himself busy reading every word of Rick Steve's guide to the museum, Charlie and I found a blog post that listed the 5 unmissable things in this museum and turned it into our own treasure hunt.

Here are some of what we found...first Mask of Agamemnon.  Kelly remembered this being on the cover of her history book!

Statue of Poseidon or Zeus...this is the age old question.  We saw people trying to take a picture posing like the statue and the guards would come and yell at them...so here is just the statue!

Fortunately for us, the museum signs were all in Greek and English, pretty much everywhere we went.

Charlie and I's vote is that it is Poseidon and that he was missing his trident in his right hand.

Some of the statues had a sign next to them that showed the statue in 1941.  There was no further information to explain what the signs meant.  I even went through the bookstore hoping to find a book all about it.  It wasn't until we got home and I had time to look it up online, I learned they had a whole exposition that showed what steps were taken during WWII to protect the treasures in the museum.  Here is a link to the exposition...https://whyathens.com/events/burying-treasures-national-archaeological-museum/

A better picture of the red sign talking about how this statue was hidden away in 1941.

Kore and Kouros... another stop on our hunt!

The girls had gone off exploring the museum on their own and Katie sent me to this section...to see what it was really like to be a goddess!

A real headpiece for a Greek Goddess & a belt..not just cheesy Halloween costumes here!

Katie;s favorite bracelets.

Hairpiece for a priestess with the goddess Artemis in the gathered up part!

I just like this giant statue, I have no idea what it was..it was huge though!

Our next stop was super fun, I had read in a magazine about a board game place...and after trying to order a drink at this restaurant that was too cool to serve us we walked out and two doors down was Charlie's new favorite place...Playhouse!

 It had fun funky tables and bright lights and board games hanging on peg boards all around.

 Lucky for us they had a family favorite Bang right on the wall where we sat down.  It was in Greek so we had to translate a few cards, thanks Google!

It is such a brilliant idea!

Pay no attention to Kelly fixing her earring and instead check out that wall full of games!

Our only complaint was that the table next to us started smoking, (even though there were no smoking signs on the walls) so we headed out after we finished Bang.  We did notice that everywhere  we went there were co-mingled smoking & non-smoking sections...when its all in the same room it really doesn't matter all that much...guess Grece is a bit behind the times in figuring this out!

The weather was forecast to be much warmer tomorrow...we head home to read about the Acropolis, so tomorrow we can take the hill!