Three-thousand-years-old cultural riches are housed in approximately 80o national and private museums scattered throughout Greece, featuring from Neolithic settlement finds to examples of modern art. The Archaeological Museums, the most important of which are located in Athens, Olympia, Delphi, the island of Delos, Santorini, Herakleion and Thessaloniki, offer a journey into antiquity going back to the birth of ancient Greek art. Nevertheless, hidden treasures housed in smaller museums present great interest also, such as the archaic statues collection in the Museum of Paros, the small idols collection in the Museum of Nafplion and the golden funeral boxes with the gold-leaf crowns of King Phillip of Macedonia in Verging. The Byzantine Museums house splendid icons collections, marble sections of early Christian churches, fine samples of sacerdotal vestments, silver and gold church vessels, as well as a wealth of mosaics and manuscripts, in addition to the major museums in Athens, Thessaloniki, Veroia, loannina and Zakynthos, the new church museums in Alexandroupolis, Sparta and definitely the Monastery of St. Loukas near Delphi are well worth a visit.
The Folk Art Museums offer hospitality to creations of popular culture crafted by simple folk since the 18th century. Artworks of jewelry, wood-carving, needlework and weaving are often exhibited along with traditional costumes, wooden farming tools, folk art paintings and items of daily use. The Peloponnesian Folk Art Museum at Nafplion is a fine example, while a significant collection of folk art is housed at the Benaki Museum in Athens. The relics of modern Greek history are exhibited in a multitude of small or large History Museums, with the largest one located in Athens exhibiting substantial collections of arms used during the Independence War against the Turks, accessories of the uniforms worn by the Freedom Fighters, banners, flags and paintings inspired by that struggle. The long affair of the Greeks with the sea, dating back to the arrival of the first Greek tribes in the region, is better understood through the exhibits at the Maritime Museums. Ot6her museum categories operating in Greece include the Natural History Museums, Science and Technology Museums, Art Workshops and Cultural Centres. Of particular interest are the Open-air Hydropower Museum in Dimitsana, peloponnes, the Open-air Museum of Mining Art at Dionysos, Attica, the Olive Oil Museum in Sparta, the Raw Silk Museum in Evros, northern Greece and the Fossils Collection Museum at Epidavros in Peloponnese

Numismatic Museum of Athens Greece
El. Venizelou Ave, Athens 106 71 - Tel: 2103643774
Mondays closed - Entrance fee: 3,00€
The Numismatic Museum of Athens, home to one of the world's finest numismatic collections comprising 600,000 coins, is among the five most important museums of its kind world-wide. Part of the museum's rich collection has been housed since 1999 in one of the most beautiful buildings in Athens. Iliou Melathron (The Palace of Ilion), built in the style of Italian Renaissance adapted to the neoclassical spirit of the late 19th century, is the work of German architect Ernst Ziller built for Heinrich Schliemann, the brilliant pioneer in field archaeology who discovered Troy. Mounted on modern and aesthetic showcases spread in six high-ceiling halls, the collection spans a history of coinage from its origins in 7th century BC to the Roman era.

Museum of Polular Instauments
Diogenous 1-3, Plateia Aeridon, Plaka 105 56 Athens - Tel: 2103250198
Open daily: 10:00 - 14:00 , Wednesday:12:00 - 18:00
Mondays closed - Free entrance
The Museum is housed in the historical Lassanis Mansion, build in 1842 in the heart of Plaka. The collection of about izoo Greek popular musical instruments, the richest in Greece and one of the most important in Europe, is the fruit of fifty years of personal research and study by the founder of the museum Fivos Anoyanakis. About half of the instruments of the Anoyanakis collection are on public display spread over three floors and divided into four sections and grouped by instrument family. Since musical instruments are not only to be looked-at but also to be heard, each showcase is equipped with headphones for listening to short musical pieces played with the displayed instrument. The collection comprises representative Greek traditional musical instruments from antiquity to the present day, including defia (tambourines), toumbelekia (pottery drums), flutes, tsabounes (bagpipes) and outia (short-necked lutes).

Ilias Lalaounis Jewerly Museum
Kallisperi Street12, Acropolis, 11742 Athens - Tel.: 2109221044
www.lalaounis-jewelrymuseum.gr
Tuesdays closed - Entrance fee: 3,00€
Free entrance on Wednesdays from 15:00 hours
The Museum is housed in a beautiful, totally renovated early zoth century building located on a side-street adjacent to Dionysiou Areopagitou, very near the Acropolis. The museum's permanent collection comprises over 3000 designs in jewelry and objects d'art created throughout the 5o-year-long carrier of the museum's founder, renowned Greek jeweler Iliac Lalaounis. Through the 45 collections of the museum, visitors are provided a clear picture of the ancient art of jewelry from prehistoric times to present day, and get a glimpse of the different civilisations where the art of jewelry flourished.

Yiannis Tsarouhis Museum
Ploutarhou 28, Maroussi 151 22 - Tel.: 2108062637
The collection of the works of the great Greek painter Yiannis Tsarouhis is housed in the home where he lived from 1974 until his death in 1989. Designed by the artist himself, the two-storey house is built in simple lines and it is surrounded by a beautiful garden, housing one of the best organised painter museums in Greece. The pieces of this rich collection are on alternating display chronologically and by subject, allowing visitors to be exposed to the largest possible part of the painter's extensive work. In addition to Tsarouhi's famous works, the collection also includes portrait drafts, sketches of costume and book illustrations, cardboard constructions, models of scenery, masks, small statues and archive material of the ingenious artist.

Moni Osiou Louka (Monastery of Osios Loukas)
Tel: 2267022797
Built on the west slope of Mt. Helikon, below the acropolis of ancient Steirion (present-day Steira of Boiotia), the monastery is one of the most important ecclesiastical monuments of the Middle Byzantine era in Greece and it is dedicated to Hossios Loucas (896-953), famous in his time for his ability to heal the faithful and foresee the future. Believed to have been built during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Ronamos B', the church of Theotocos (God's Mother), is the earliest known example of the four-column, cross-in-square type. Dating back to the iith century, the second church of the monastery, the catholicon, is one of the most important and beautiful churches in Greece, and it was built in order to house the relics of Hossios Loucas. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the Monastery each year to marvel at the exceptional mosaics and frescos, which are among the finest surviving specimens of their time.

Museum of Asian Art - Corfu
Mondays closed - Entrance fee:2,00€
The Museum of Asian Art collection is unique of its kind in Greece and one of the richest in Europe, comprising approximately 11000 objects, on display again after many years. It is housed in a building initially used as the headquarters of the Knights of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, the most impressive architectural work of the British presence on the island (1814-1864). It occupies the northern section of the Spianada Square, the largest and most beautiful square in Greece, which was designed by the French just before the palace was built. A collection of paintings, statuettes from China, Persian carpets, objects made of ivory, arms and naturally a large collection of rare Chinese porcelain vases are housed in the impressive high-ceiling halls of the building.

The Achillion Palace
Tel: 2661056210 - Entrance fee: 6,00€
Located at approximately lo kilometres southwest of the city of Corfu, the Achilleion Palace stands in an olive grove near the village of Gastouri. The palace was built between 1889 and 1891 by the Italian architect Raphael Canto for the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary Elizabeth, better known as Sissy. The impressive halls of this fascinating relic of 19th century grand design, one of which has been transformed into a chapel, are crowded with a collection of statues, furnishings, interesting artifacts, 19th century paintings and personal items of the
Empress. The Achilleion gardens are decorated with a number of statues including an 11.5-metre-tall statue of Achilles placed there by German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II, who bought the palace after Sissy's assassination in 1892, and added his own grandiose touches.

Archeological Museum of Vathy Ithaca
Tel.: 2674032200  Open daily: 08.30 - 15:30 - Mondays closed - Free entrance
Regardless of what you have ever heard about Homer and his cunning hero Ulysses, here in the small archaeological museum of Vathy, the capital of the