Acropolis Museum

Beneath the southern slope of the Acropolis, a glass and concrete building designed by the architect Bernard Tschumi with Michael Photiadis opened in 2009 as the new Acropolis Museum, replacing the cramped old museum on the rock. It was built to do one thing the earlier museum could not: show the sculptures from the sacred hill in natural light, with the Parthenon itself in view.

The design is part of the experience. You enter over glass panels set in the ground, through which the foundations of an excavated ancient neighbourhood, with houses, workshops and bathhouses, can be seen beneath your feet. The collection spans Greek art from prehistory to the Roman period, and the galleries climb gradually, echoing the ascent of the hill. The first level covers the slopes of the Acropolis with finds from the Propylaia and the sanctuaries on them, the second brings together the Archaic sculptures, including a famous group of korai, the draped maiden statues, and the top floor, turned at an angle to match the axis of the Parthenon, is the Parthenon Gallery.

The gallery is the highlight. It reproduces the temple's footprint, with the surviving frieze mounted at its true height and glass walls looking out to the monument. Original pieces are displayed beside blank plaster casts, a deliberate and pointed reminder of the sculptures held in London. Elsewhere, the Caryatids from the Erechtheion stand in their own gallery, protected from weathering that was dissolving them on the rock.

As a counterpart to the climb to the summit, the museum works well. Visiting before the Acropolis gives you a sense of what the buildings were meant to look like, and visiting afterwards lets you study the details that are too high or too far away to read on site. Visitors should allow two hours for a thoughtful visit, longer if you pause in the café, whose terrace gives a clear view of the Parthenon.

Few museums in Greece are better located, and getting there is straightforward on foot from Plaka or by metro to the Acropolis station on Line 2, a few minutes' walk away. The pedestrian street Dionysiou Areopagitou runs close by. Pairing the museum with the Acropolis, the Ancient Agora and the Temple of Olympian Zeus makes a full day of classical Athens, with the museum a good indoor refuge when summer heat peaks.