Kids under 18 already get into Greece's state museums and ancient sites free with ID. From November to March, the first and third Sunday of each month make it free for the adults too, plus Oct 28 and Mar 6. The Acropolis Museum runs its own free days and isn't part of this. Here's what we checked, from the Acropolis to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounio.
A flat-topped rock 150 m above sea level, crowned by temples built in the fifth century BC: the Parthenon, the Propylaea gateway, the Erechtheion and the small Temple of Athena Nike. Kids can spot the Erechtheion porch held up by stone women (the caryatids), and the ancient Theatre of Dionysus sits on the south slope.
Suits school-age kids who know a few Greek myths more than toddlers.
The Ancient Agora was the marketplace and meeting ground of ancient Athens, on the slope below the Acropolis. Paths lead past the Temple of Hephaestus, the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles and the remains of law courts and shops, under oak and laurel trees planted since 1954.
The rebuilt Stoa of Attalos holds the site museum, where exhibits show how Athenian democracy worked.
Greece's largest archaeology museum holds more than 20,000 objects, spanning Greek history from prehistory to late antiquity. Kids tend to make for the Mycenaean gold, including the mask once wrongly named for Agamemnon, the Artemision Bronze, Egyptian mummies, Bronze Age wall paintings from Akrotiri on Santorini, and the Antikythera mechanism.
Out front, a garden lined with sculptures has a café.
The Roman Agora is the ruined market square Augustus paid for around 2,000 years ago, north of the Acropolis. Kids enter through the Gate of Athena Archegetis, a Doric marble gateway, and cross to the Tower of the Winds.
The octagonal tower stands 12 meters tall with a carved wind god on each side and eight sundials. It once held a water clock, and Roman public latrines stood beside it.
Emperor Hadrian built this library in AD 132: a walled rectangle with a Corinthian gateway on its west side, a courtyard ringed by columns, and reading and lecture halls.
The courtyard also holds the remains of churches later built on the ruins, including a 5th-century church with four apses. A marked path of beaten earth, suited to wheelchairs and strollers, runs in from the Dexippos Street entrance.
Kerameikos was the potters' quarter and a major cemetery of ancient Athens, and the English word "ceramic" comes from its name. Paths run past grave monuments on the Street of Tombs, the remains of the Dipylon and Sacred Gates, and the Eridanos stream, where some water still flows.
A small museum holds the original grave sculptures and burial finds, from marble stelae to jewelry and toys.
A national museum of Byzantine art in the Villa Ilissia, an 1848 mansion built for the Duchess of Plaisance. More than 25,000 objects span the 3rd century to the modern era: icons, frescoes, marble carvings, pottery, textiles and manuscripts, plus the wall paintings of a Byzantine church from Episkopi in Evrytania.
Free printed educational material for families waits at the gallery entrance, and the garden has a cafe.
A two-story 1840 mansion with an inner courtyard holds the largest collection of Greek folk instruments, from the mid-18th century on, gathered from the islands, the mainland, Constantinople, Pontus, Cappadocia and Cyprus. Drums and wind instruments fill the ground floor, string instruments the first floor, and bells and sound-making objects the basement.
An audio guide app covers the highlights, and summer brings concerts in the garden.
The Temple of Poseidon stands on the headland at Cape Sounion, almost 60 meters above the sea, which surrounds it on three sides. Built around 444 to 440 BC, it still has 15 of its original 34 Doric marble columns standing.
Kids can hunt for the name of Lord Byron carved into the base of one column, then find the ruins of the Temple of Athena close by.
The Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron is where young Athenian girls once served the goddess as "she-bears", dancing and running races in saffron robes.
Kids can walk the restored Doric stoa, peek into its dining rooms with stone tables and cuttings for couch legs, and cross the only known Classical stone bridge in Greece, with cart wheel ruts still worn into its slabs.
A Doric temple built around 500 BC on a hilltop about 160 m up, on the island's east side. Its columns still stand, though the roof is gone, and on a clear day the Acropolis shows across the gulf.
The site museum rebuilds part of an older temple that burned around 510 BC, plus copies of the sculpted warriors from the Trojan War battles that once filled the pediments.
Ancient Corinth is the excavated lower city of a Greek city-state that rivaled Athens in classical times and later became a Roman city. Seven of the 38 Doric columns of the Temple of Apollo still stand, with the Acrocorinth rock rising behind them, and paths lead past Greek, Roman and Byzantine remains, including an ancient theater.
The site museum holds statues and finds from more than a century of digs.
Kids under 18 already get into Greece's state museums and ancient sites free with ID. From November to March, the first and third Sunday of each month make it free for the adults too, plus Oct 28 and Mar 6. The Acropolis Museum runs its own free days and isn't part of this. Here's what we checked, from the Acropolis to the Temple of Poseidon at Sounio.
A flat-topped rock 150 m above sea level, crowned by temples built in the fifth century BC: the Parthenon, the Propylaea gateway, the Erechtheion and the small Temple of Athena Nike. Kids can spot the Erechtheion porch held up by stone women (the caryatids), and the ancient Theatre of Dionysus sits on the south slope.
Suits school-age kids who know a few Greek myths more than toddlers.
The Ancient Agora was the marketplace and meeting ground of ancient Athens, on the slope below the Acropolis. Paths lead past the Temple of Hephaestus, the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles and the remains of law courts and shops, under oak and laurel trees planted since 1954.
The rebuilt Stoa of Attalos holds the site museum, where exhibits show how Athenian democracy worked.
Greece's largest archaeology museum holds more than 20,000 objects, spanning Greek history from prehistory to late antiquity. Kids tend to make for the Mycenaean gold, including the mask once wrongly named for Agamemnon, the Artemision Bronze, Egyptian mummies, Bronze Age wall paintings from Akrotiri on Santorini, and the Antikythera mechanism.
Out front, a garden lined with sculptures has a café.
The Roman Agora is the ruined market square Augustus paid for around 2,000 years ago, north of the Acropolis. Kids enter through the Gate of Athena Archegetis, a Doric marble gateway, and cross to the Tower of the Winds.
The octagonal tower stands 12 meters tall with a carved wind god on each side and eight sundials. It once held a water clock, and Roman public latrines stood beside it.
Emperor Hadrian built this library in AD 132: a walled rectangle with a Corinthian gateway on its west side, a courtyard ringed by columns, and reading and lecture halls.
The courtyard also holds the remains of churches later built on the ruins, including a 5th-century church with four apses. A marked path of beaten earth, suited to wheelchairs and strollers, runs in from the Dexippos Street entrance.
Kerameikos was the potters' quarter and a major cemetery of ancient Athens, and the English word "ceramic" comes from its name. Paths run past grave monuments on the Street of Tombs, the remains of the Dipylon and Sacred Gates, and the Eridanos stream, where some water still flows.
A small museum holds the original grave sculptures and burial finds, from marble stelae to jewelry and toys.
A national museum of Byzantine art in the Villa Ilissia, an 1848 mansion built for the Duchess of Plaisance. More than 25,000 objects span the 3rd century to the modern era: icons, frescoes, marble carvings, pottery, textiles and manuscripts, plus the wall paintings of a Byzantine church from Episkopi in Evrytania.
Free printed educational material for families waits at the gallery entrance, and the garden has a cafe.
A two-story 1840 mansion with an inner courtyard holds the largest collection of Greek folk instruments, from the mid-18th century on, gathered from the islands, the mainland, Constantinople, Pontus, Cappadocia and Cyprus. Drums and wind instruments fill the ground floor, string instruments the first floor, and bells and sound-making objects the basement.
An audio guide app covers the highlights, and summer brings concerts in the garden.
The Temple of Poseidon stands on the headland at Cape Sounion, almost 60 meters above the sea, which surrounds it on three sides. Built around 444 to 440 BC, it still has 15 of its original 34 Doric marble columns standing.
Kids can hunt for the name of Lord Byron carved into the base of one column, then find the ruins of the Temple of Athena close by.
The Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron is where young Athenian girls once served the goddess as "she-bears", dancing and running races in saffron robes.
Kids can walk the restored Doric stoa, peek into its dining rooms with stone tables and cuttings for couch legs, and cross the only known Classical stone bridge in Greece, with cart wheel ruts still worn into its slabs.
A Doric temple built around 500 BC on a hilltop about 160 m up, on the island's east side. Its columns still stand, though the roof is gone, and on a clear day the Acropolis shows across the gulf.
The site museum rebuilds part of an older temple that burned around 510 BC, plus copies of the sculpted warriors from the Trojan War battles that once filled the pediments.
Ancient Corinth is the excavated lower city of a Greek city-state that rivaled Athens in classical times and later became a Roman city. Seven of the 38 Doric columns of the Temple of Apollo still stand, with the Acrocorinth rock rising behind them, and paths lead past Greek, Roman and Byzantine remains, including an ancient theater.
The site museum holds statues and finds from more than a century of digs.
