Greek museums listed amongst best in the world

The on-line edition of the UK’s Telegraph newspaper has listed two Greek museums among the world’s 41 most incredible museums to visit before you die.

The newspaper nominated the Acropolis Museum and the Benaki Museum on its ‘most incredible museums to visit before you die’ noting their unique characteristics and history.

The article notes that the Tschumi-designed Athens Museum was inaugurated in June 2009 and displays “proud statues of the ancients and life-like stone carvings of animals”. It is also mentioned that the museum’s top floor is devoted to the marble frieze that once ran around the top of the Parthenon.

“The missing pieces were removed by Lord Elgin in 1801 and are now in the British Museum in London. The Greeks have wanted them back for decades, and hope that this blatant presentation will finally convince the British to return them.”

Referring to the Benaki Museum, the article refers to its neo-classical architecture “with a lovely roof-terrace cafe” and traces Greek art right up the 20th century.

“…Top pieces include the Thessaly Treasure (a hoard of gold filigree jewellery set with precious stones, dating from the second century BC), two early paintings by El Greco, and the reconstruction of two 18th-century, wood-panelled, Ottoman-inspired living rooms.’’

Other incredible museums to visit before you die, according to the article, include New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris’s Musée du Louvre, Rome’s Vatican Museums, London’s Design Museum, Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, Barcelona’s Museu Picasso, St Petersburg’s The Hermitage and many more.