New Acropolis Museum

This all glass, $100 million showpiece (when Greece had money in 2008), designed by internationally renowned architect Bernard Tschumi, is meant to give a fitting home to Greece's greatest treasures: the marble sculptures that once adorned the Acropolis, especially the mighty Parthenon. Its construction was meant to send a pointed international message: In 1799, the seventh Earl of Elgin cut off two-thirds of the sculptures of gods, men and monsters adorning the Parthenon and took them to England. Most were sold to the British Museum, which refuses to return them, saying Athens cannot display them adequately or safely. A special room stands ready in the new museum to wait the return of the marbles.

The museum is built directly over an early Christian settlement with exterior and interior glass floors (first video below) that allow visitors to look directly down into the site while surrounded by Classical and Archaic sculptures (layer upon layer of ruins discovered during construction of the new museum resulting in its reconstituted architecture on columns or stilts, raising to raise floor and explore ruins, most recent on top and older underneath). We hired a city tour guide, Kriton (for 2- one-half days) to lead us around the most notable Athens sites and to help interpret their significance. The video is all exterior since cameras were not allowed in the main museum: