Museums in Athens – A Complete Guide To All The Museums In Athens

This is a complete guide to all the museums in Athens. The guide came about as a personal project to visit every museum in Athens. In the beginning, I had a list of 60 museums to choose from. Now, this list of museums in Athens has 77 places, and I discover more each month! 

Museums in Athens Greece

Apart from the popular museums such as the Acropolis Museum, and the National Archaeological Museum, few visitors to Athens are aware of just how many more there are.

There are dozens upon dozens of museums in Athens, but these smaller ones just slip off the radar.

This means that most visitors to Athens will never get to see such gems as the Shadow Puppet Museum, or the Numismatic Museum, which if I were to judge by just the name alone, would surely be the best!

Even if they did know about them, visiting them all could take weeks.

If that sounds like you, you might want to short cut to my article about the best museums in Athens.

Visiting All The Museums In Athens

Which is where I come in. Whilst I am living in Greece, I do have time to visit all the museums in Athens. Not in one go though, obviously.

My intention is to visit one a week, and then write about it on this travel blog. This way, it will become a regular weekly feature, and hopefully a resource to anyone who is thinking of visiting Athens.

Note – Choosing how to define ‘Athens' is no easy task. For the sake of simplicity, I have decided it is the greater metropolitan area, which also includes Piraeus.

Choosing the Museums in Athens

How do I go about choosing which museums in Athens to visit first then?

I suppose I could just go by the most popular ones first. That's a bit boring and predictable though.

Instead, I think I will use a lottery system, and give each museum a number. I will then use an online randomizer to pick a number from a ‘virtual hat'. (Did that sound massively geeky?).

A List Of Museums in Athens

This is where I face a bit of a problem.

Putting together a comprehensive list of museums in Athens is no easy task.

Part of the reason for this, is that some are run by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, some by The City of Athens, and others run by who knows!

It goes without saying that there is no official list of all the museums in Athens. This is the real Greece baby!

So, think of the list below not quite as the definitive one, but more of a work in progress.

As I discover more, I will add them to the list.

If you think I have left any out, or know of any I should add, then please leave a comment below.

The underlined museums are linked to full blog posts about each one. If you see a museum not underlined, that's because I haven't been there yet.

All the Museums in Central Athens

1. Acropolis Museum
2. Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos
3. Epigraphical Museum
4. Museum of Cycladic Art
5. Museum of the Ancient Agora + Stoa of Attalos
6. Museum of the Center for the Acropolis Studies
7. National Archaeological Museum of Athens
8. Old Acropolis Museum – CLOSED
9. Numismatic Museum of Athens
10. Syntagma Metro Station Archaeological Collection
11. Byzantine and Christian Museum (of Athens)
12. Benaki Museum -Main Building
13. Eleftherios Venizelos Historical Museum
14. Jewish Museum of Greece
15. Museum of Pavlos and Alexandra Kanellopoulou
16. Museum of the City of Athens
17. National Historical Museum of Greece (Old Parliament House)
18. Centre for the Study of Traditional Pottery
19. Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum
20. Museum of Greek Folk Art
21. Museum of Popular Music Instruments
22. Museum of the History of the Greek Costume
23. Athinais Culture Center
24. Bernier-Iliadis Gallery Museum
25. City of Athens Cultural Center
26. Design Museum of the 20th Century
27. Frissiras Museum
28. Gounaropoulos Museum
29. Herakleidon Art Museum (Main Building)
30. The Herakleidon Museum in Athens – Annex Building
31. Museum of Engravings and Graphic Arts
32. Marika Kotopouli Museum
33. Haridimos Shadow Puppet Museum
34. Municipal Gallery of Athens
35. Museum of Children's Art in Plaka
36. National Glyptotheque
37. National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
38. Paxinou-Minotis Museum
39. Pieridis Museum of Ancient Cypriot Greek Art & Contemporary Art
40. The N. Chatzikiriakos-Gkikas Art Gallery
41. Technopolis Industrial Gas Museum
42. Theatrical Museum of Greece
43. Zoumboulaki Gallery
44. Athens War Museum
45.  Museum of the Athens-Piraeus Electric Railways
46. Museum of Anthropology, University of Athens
47. Museum of Geology and Paleontology of the Athens University
48. Zoological Museum of the University of Athens
49. Athens University Museum
50. Hellenic Children's Museum
51. Postal & Philatelic Museum of Greece
52. Deste Foundation (exhibition area)
53. Drossinis Museum
54. Spathario Museum
55. Yiannis Tsarouchis Foundation Museum
56. OTE Museum of Telecommunications, Kifisia
57. Gaia Center
58. Goulandris Natural History Museum
59. Evgenidio Foundation (Planetarium and Science museum)
60. Greek armored cruiser Georgios Averof
61. Tactual Museum of Athens
62. Archaeological (Piraeus)
63. Archaeological Museum of Piraeus
64. Municipal Art Gallery of Piraeus
65. Panos Aravantinos Decor Museum
66. Hellenic Maritime Museum (Piraeus)
67. Hellenic Motor Museum 
68. The Bath House of the Winds (Annex of the Museum of Greek Folk Art)
69. Museum on Panos Street (Annex of the Museum of Greek Folk Art)
70. Ai Stratis Political Exile Museum
71. Makronisos Political Exile Museum
72. Museum  of Greek Gastronomy
73. Destroyer Velos D-16
74. Museum of Criminology
75. Atelier Spyros Vassiliou' Museum
76. The Museum of Islamic Art in Athens (Benaki Museum in Kerameikos)

 

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