Today was a relatively light day: two museums and a couple of walks. Even I think I may have done too much yesterday; I was really tired and actually slept until 8:30 this morning.
I visited the National Archaeological Museum in the morning which, as I expected, was outstanding. Unfortunately, the vase collection (about ten galleries) was closed; I was disappointed as I had prepared by visiting the Met's collection a couple of times. The sculpture collection (about twenty galleries) was fantastic. It includes more than a few bronzes (rare in NY) and marble statues from the Archaic through Roman periods. (I skipped the Cycladic period as I don't really know anything about it.) There were many original 6th-4th Century (BC of course) classical period originals but, as in NY, there were many Roman copies of Greek originals. The bronze Poseidon (or Zeus, as scholars are still arguing) is fantastic as is the boy jockey on horse.
At the entrance of the museum one finds Schliemann's Mycenaean Treasure including the so-called Mask of Agamemnon. If Schliemann had never heard of Troy, he would be renowned for this discovery.
I also visited the Benaki Museum which, like the Frick and the Isabella Gardener, is a private collection made available to the public. It has a small but beautiful Classical collection and a much larger Byzantine one that rivals or exceeds the Byzantine Musuem collection that I saw earlier in the week.
In the course of my museum visits, I did one of my favorite things: I mastered the Athens metro. It is quiet and clean and, unlike almost everything else in the city, is free of graffiti.
Dinner tonight in a taverna recommended by the hotel. Back to NY tomorrow. There is much more to see in Greece and I hope to do it some day. This week, every day was hotter than the day before but still mostly tolerable. October, I think, would be the kindest month.
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