Benaki Museum
Koumbari Street and Vassilisis Sofias Avenue
Athens, Greece

If you had only one day in Athens and one place to visit, we would recommend the Benaki Museum, the museum that best show cases Greece's art and culture from 3200 b.c. to today, as well as the role that Greeks of the Diaspora have played in the reconstruction of Greek culture since the succesful revolution against the Ottoman Empire.

The museum was founded in 1930 by Antonios Benakis (1873-1954) and is housed in his family's mansion, one of the finest examples of neo-classical architecture in Athens. Benakis was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, a city where Greek presence in economic, social and cultural life has been felt for thousands of years. Benakis' temperament was also marked by the dramatic historical events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: such as Greece's failed war against Turkey in 1897, the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and most of all the destruction of Smyrna and the re-partition of thousands of Greek refugees in the fall of 1922.

The museum became an immediate success due to the artifacts collected by its founder and the continued donations by other private collectors from the diasporas and from within Greece. Now, with recent building and exhibit re-organization, the museum has a fabulous coffee shop with commanding views of Athens, an enlarged book and gift shop, and a new hall that houses contemporary exhibits. Parts of the collection such a Chinese and Persian collections will be housed in other historical homes across Athens.

The ground floor houses the pre-Cycladic , Minoan, geometric, and Byzantine art. The first floor has various objects from mainland Greece, the Greek islands, and from Asia Minor. The second floor has objects from the every day life of Greeks: home tools, decorations, dress, embroideries etc. The third floor houses objects related to the war of independence and the newly created nation of Greece in the 19th century. Notable amongst the exhibits are some very rare ecclesiastical objects, watercolours and drawings of Athens by early travellers, rare book collections, as well as exquisite examples of post-Byzantine jewelry.

A jewel of a museum, a must for all visitors to Athens!!