Unofficial visitor guide · Athens
Μουσείο Ακρόπολης · Google Maps
The Acropolis Museum has a free digital guide for 60 exhibits on your own phone. For every other label, or if you'd rather listen in your own language, here is what helps.
Independent guide by the makers of Tales of Museums. Not affiliated with the Acropolis Museum.
Checked on 14 October 2026 from the sources linked above. Museums change their guides and rules; confirm on the official Acropolis Museum website before you go.
Checked on 14 October 2026 from the sources linked above. Museums change their guides and rules; confirm on the official Acropolis Museum website before you go.
Swipe for the works and stories worth knowing before you go.
When the old museum on the Rock shut in 2007, statues weighing up to 2.5 tons were strapped into padded harnesses, packed into foam-filled boxes and swung about 300 yards downhill by tall cranes. According to NBC News, Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis helped load the Kritios Boy into his box himself.
A young soldier runs across this painted plaque, beside words praising the beauty of a youth named Glaukytes. Look underneath: an older name, Megakles, is half rubbed out. According to the museum, he was probably Alkibiades' grandfather, ostracised in 487/6 BC, and it suggests his name was swapped out at that time.
Found in pieces west of the Erechtheion in 1886, this rider is split between two countries: his head went to the Louvre in 1896, bequeathed by the collector Georges Rampin. Athens shows a plaster copy of the head, and the Louvre sets the original on a cast of the Athens body and horse. Look for paint on his face and hair.
theacropolismuseum.gr: Rampin Rider · louvre.fr: Head of the Rampin Horseman
Count the holes: 35 in her head once held metal rods for a crown of rays or lotus flowers, and tiny ones in her earlobes held bronze earrings. Paint analysis showed her white peplos had a central band of small animals, birds and riders set in red squares, and that her lips and irises were red.
A winged Victory bends to loosen her sandal, her thin dress clinging as if wet. In 1687 the Ottomans took apart the Athena Nike temple and its parapet to shore up a gun position against the Venetians, and this slab only resurfaced near the temple in 1835, when that gun platform was being demolished.
Visitors could watch the Caryatids being cleaned with a laser built in Crete that fires infrared and ultraviolet beams together. According to NBC News, either beam on its own tinted the marble, one yellow and the other grey, so the two are combined. The programme won the 2012 Keck Award.
theacropolismuseum.gr: Laser cleaning · NBC News, Oct 2008: Greek scientists use lasers to clean Acropolis
Two Greek competitions in the 1970s found no winner. A 1989 international contest drew 438 entries and an Italian team won, but the result was voided, and in 1999 the site's excavations got the plans judged impracticable. According to To Vima, from 1993 to 2009 the museum faced over 100 lawsuits, all dismissed.
The Art Newspaper, June 2000 · To Vima: The Acropolis Museum and the Thirty Year War
His torso was dug up south-east of the Parthenon in 1865-66, but his head only in 1888, near the south walls. The museum links him to Kritios through his likeness to Harmodios in a lost bronze group. Scholars offer two reasons the head was cut off: reuse as building fill, or a respectful burial. Look for red on his hair.
His body was found in 1864 while the old Acropolis Museum was being built, and his base with the feet in 1887. In 2014 conservators removed old plaster and limestone fills from the missing lower legs, uncovered how he was first fixed to his base, and corrected his height from 1.61 m to 1.65 m.
theacropolismuseum.gr: Calf-Bearer · theacropolismuseum.gr: Calf-Bearer conservation
At 2.05 metres she is the largest kore of the Acropolis. According to the museum, the potter Nearchos dedicated her to Athena from his first earnings, and she was carved by Antenor, son of Eumares. Her eyes were once glass, and her eyelashes bronze.
Tales of Museums reads the label in front of you aloud in your language, for any exhibit you can photograph, not only the guided ones. The museum's free Wi-Fi covers all public areas. Bring your own headphones: the museum does not sell or rent them.
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No. The museum asks visitors not to photograph or film there, to protect sculptures that still have traces of their ancient colour. Elsewhere, photos without flash are allowed. museum: FAQ
Both. The Parthenon Gallery shows original marbles together with plaster casts of the parts held in the British Museum, removed by Lord Elgin's agents in 1801-1804. museum
Five of the original Caryatids are shown in the museum. The sixth has been in the British Museum since Lord Elgin removed it in 1804. They were taken off the Erechtheion in 1979 to protect them from pollution. museum
An ancient Athenian neighbourhood of about 4,000 square metres, with houses, workshops, baths and streets used from the Classical to the Byzantine period. It is included in the general ticket. museum
General admission is €20 and reduced €10, and it covers all galleries and the excavation under the building. Entry is free for everyone on 6 March, 25 March, 18 May and 28 October; reduced and free tickets are sold only at the ticket desk on proof of eligibility. The Acropolis site itself needs a separate ticket. theacropolismuseum.gr: plan your visit
Every Friday until 10 pm all year (last entry 9:30 pm). From April to October it is open 9 am to 8 pm Tuesday to Sunday and until 5 pm on Mondays; from November to March it closes at 5 pm Monday to Thursday and at 8 pm at weekends. The second-floor restaurant stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. theacropolismuseum.gr: plan your visit
Take metro Line 2 to Akropoli station. Trolleybuses 1, 5 and 15 and many city buses stop at Makrigianni, and the main entrance is at Dionysiou Areopagitou 15. theacropolismuseum.gr: plan your visit
Yes: every entrance has a ramp and every floor has lifts and accessible toilets. Wheelchairs can be borrowed at the Visitor Services Desk and buggies at the ground-floor cloakroom; families can also pick up free family backpacks and trails there. theacropolismuseum.gr: plan your visit
The museum's own free digital guide offers a short audio tour of 30 selected exhibits that takes about 1 hour and a long tour of 60 exhibits that takes about 2 hours. Allow extra time if you also want to walk the excavation under the building. museum: digital guide
Yes, the Acropolis Museum has two. The ground-floor café next to the shop has a terrace over the excavation and needs no museum ticket; the second-floor restaurant looks out on the Acropolis and needs a free entry ticket from the ticket desk. Both follow museum hours, and the restaurant stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. museum: café and restaurant · museum: plan your visit
The museum's free digital guide includes a 90-minute family audio tour in Greek and English, designed as an exploration game for parents and children; bring a charged phone and headphones. Free family trails and backpacks are lent at the Visitor Services Desk, and there is a parents' room for babies on the first floor. museum: family audio guide · museum: plan your visit (services)
Buy a general admission e-ticket for a set date and time from the Acropolis Museum's official e-ticketing service: e-tickets give fast entry through the museum's priority entry lane, so you go straight to the scanning machines at the exhibition entrance with the ticket on your phone or printed. Reduced and free tickets are sold only at the ticket desk on the ground floor, on showing proof of eligibility. Leave large bags and backpacks behind if you can, because there is an X-ray security check at the museum's entrance. etickets.theacropolismuseum.gr: official e-ticketing (terms of sale and use) · theacropolismuseum.gr: plan your visit (tickets) · theacropolismuseum.gr: FAQ (security check)
The Acropolis Museum asks you to leave large bags, backpacks and other bulky items in its cloakroom on the ground floor, and bags are X-rayed at the entrance, so the museum recommends not bringing large bags at all. Food and drink are not allowed in the galleries, and neither are flash, portable lights or tripods. theacropolismuseum.gr: FAQ (cloakroom, security check, pets, photos) · theacropolismuseum.gr: plan your visit (Caution Please)
Tales of Museums is an independent app and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Acropolis Museum. Translations, narration and the extra facts use AI and can contain mistakes, so for anything important, check the museum's official information and the linked sources. Please follow the museum's photography rules.