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attraction · Athens
Eight Euros for the Thousand Years Everyone Skips
Review of Byzantine and Christian Museum
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Share your experienceThe Byzantine and Christian Museum charges 8 euros for a regular ticket and 4 euros reduced. It opens Monday 8:30 to 15:30 and is closed on Tuesdays. Athens sells itself on the classical fifth century, and then most visitors leave without noticing that the city spent the following thousand years as part of a Christian empire that produced its own extraordinary art. This is the museum for that millennium: icons, mosaics, carved marble, liturgical silver, and reconstructed church interiors. It sits in the Villa Ilissia, a nineteenth-century mansion on Vasilissis Sofias, with most of the collection below ground in a purpose-built extension around a courtyard. Free admission runs on the first Sunday of the month from November to March.
What was great
Eight euros, which is a third of what the Acropolis costs, for a collection nobody else in the world can match. Free for under-25s from the EU. The underground galleries are cool in summer, which matters in Athens.
What nearly ruined the trip
Byzantine art is an acquired taste and the museum does little to ease you in. It closes at 15:30 on most days, which catches people planning an afternoon. Tuesday closure is easy to walk into.
Value for money
★★★★★ BargainSafety
★★★★★ Felt safeWho is going to Athens?
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