The Museum of Cycladic Art

The Cycladic figurines

Slim marble figures, most of them female, arms folded left over right below the breast, faces blank but for a ridged nose. They were carved on the Cycladic islands in the Early Bronze Age, they were painted — traces of pigment survive on some — and nobody knows what they were for. Their flatness and their abstraction made them a touchstone for Brancusi, Modigliani, Picasso and Moore, which is why a case of prehistoric grave goods reads as modern sculpture.

Ancient Greek art

A floor of pottery, bronze and glass covering everyday Greek life from the second millennium BC to late antiquity. The pieces are arranged by what they were used for rather than by date, so you move through the wine, the wedding, the athletic contest and the grave instead of through centuries. That layout makes it the most readable introduction to daily life in the ancient city, and a good warm-up before the bigger national collections nearby.

Allow an hour. The labelling is clear and the galleries are compact, so you do not need a guide to follow it. If you only have limited time in Athens, this floor plus the Cycladic collection upstairs covers a lot of ground in one visit without the crush you get at the Acropolis Museum in high season.

Cypriot antiquities

The Thanos Zintilis collection holds Cypriot art from the Chalcolithic to the Roman period, several thousand years of making on one island. Cyprus sat at the crossing point of the Aegean and the Near East, and the material shows it, with forms and decorative habits that look unlike anything from mainland Greece. Collections of Cypriot antiquities are rare outside Cyprus itself, which makes this floor unusual in a European museum.

Give it a separate half hour rather than folding it into the Greek galleries, because the styles take a moment to adjust to. Photography rules and any temporary display changes are not stated, so check at the desk on arrival. The floor sits within the same ticket as the rest of the museum, with no separate charge mentioned.

The Stathatos Mansion

The Stathatos Mansion is a nineteenth-century house on the corner of the block, designed by Ernst Ziller, the architect who shaped much of central Athens in that era. It is connected to the modern museum wing by a glazed passage and is used for the temporary exhibitions, so what is on show inside changes through the year. Even without a special exhibition it is worth stepping in, because the rooms themselves, with their proportions and detailing, are the exhibit.

Check at the entrance which exhibition is running and whether it is included in your ticket, since the programme is not fixed. Build in twenty to thirty minutes for it. If you are heading on to the Byzantine and Christian Museum up the avenue, the mansion pairs well with its later religious material.

The week

The museum opens Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00, Thursday from 10:00 to 20:00, and Sunday from 11:00 to 17:00. It closes on Tuesdays, so do not plan the visit for that day. Last entry is fifteen minutes before closing time, which matters if you are cutting it fine on a short afternoon.

Thursday evening is the slot to aim for, because the galleries stay open until 20:00 and you can visit after a day of outdoor sites, then walk down Vasilissis Sofias as the traffic thins. Sunday starts later at 11:00. As a private museum it keeps its own calendar, separate from the state free-entry days, so confirm any free admission at the desk rather than assuming.

The closed days, including the Greek ones

1 January, Clean Monday, 25 March, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, 1 May, Holy Spirit Monday, 15 August, 25 and 26 December. Three of those move: Clean Monday is the start of Orthodox Lent, Easter is the Orthodox date and Holy Spirit Monday is fifty-one days after it. None of them appears on the state sites' closed list, so a day when the Acropolis is open can be a day when this museum is shut.

Getting there

The entrance is on the corner of Vasilissis Sofias and Irodotou, a short walk from the top of Syntagma square. Evangelismos station on Line 3 is about five minutes away, and Syntagma on Lines 2 and 3 about ten, so the museum is easy to reach from either. It is five minutes on foot from the Byzantine and Christian Museum along the same avenue, which makes the two an obvious pair on one morning.

Lines 2 and 3 of the metro opened in 2000, and Syntagma station itself keeps a free archaeological display in the concourse, worth a look as you pass through. Allow for traffic on Vasilissis Sofias if you come by taxi, since the avenue clogs at rush hour.