Athens: Acropolis Museum

Rather than leave all the cool statues and pots and stuff up on the hill in the Acropolis, Athens built a separate Museum just down the hill. As they were preparing to build the museum, they found an ancient city on the site. So they continued uncovering the city but then built the museum on risers above the archeological site. The effect is really cool...as you walk up to the entrance, you see the remains of ancient Greece below you.

Then, as you climb to the second and third floors of the museum, additional glass floorings mean you're looking down up to four levels.  Despite being a terrible thing for my vertigo, the effect was amazing--it echoed the layers of civilization that have been accumulating here for more than 3,000 years.

The owl representing wisdom.  He's also on some of the Euro coins we got in Greece.  And John got a pair of cufflinks, and Jack and I got necklace pendants of this one.

View from the museum.

We couldn't take any photos inside, so this is the best we can do. The museum was filled with incredible statuary and other artifacts.  The Greeks did a lot of fascinating animal/human combinations, like 1/2 man, 1/2 lion.  My personal favorite was a huge ancient statue of Athena wearing a warrior coat trimmed in live snakes.  Here's a picture someone else took: