Today we planned to visit the National Archaeological Museum. On Tuesdays it doesn’t open until one in the afternoon, so this morning we visited the National Garden.
On our way there we just happened to pass the tomb of the unknown soldier as they were getting ready to do the changing of the guard.
Duke remembers that when he was in Athens in 1975 there were gyros vendors on every corner. We have been looking for a vendor selling gyros ever since we got to Athens. On the way from the park to our hotel we finally found a gyros place so we each had one for lunch. They were really good.
This afternoon we went to the Archaeological Museum. It was very well laid out and very interesting. For instance, this mask of Agamemnon is actually a funeral mask from about 1550 BC. In legend King Agamemnon led the Mycenaeans to defeat Troy. This mask is from about three centuries before the fall of Troy to the Mycenaeans. So even if Agamemnon existed this can’t be him.
Many of the statues on the museum were copies, Roman copies of the Greek originals! This statue of Athena is a Roman copy. The original was forty feet tall and was located in the Parthenon on the Acropolis.
The golden age Greeks made wonderful lifelike bronzes in the 4th century BC.
For dinner we went back to the Gyro place where we ate lunch. We had another great meal.
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