4 Reasons why you should visit the Acropolis Museum with your family

The Acropolis Museum is the opposite of the Acropolis: modern and dynamic, but steeped in the ancient history of the city.

1. Impressive Location

Built atop an ongoing archaeological dig site—the entrance to the museum is a glass walkway with a view to the works – the Acropolis museum homes the statues that once lived in the Acropolis, including the famous Caryatids.

2. Indulged in History 

The Acropolis Museum is a real treasure trove of ancient statues, pottery and other articles from the glory years of Athenian democracy. If your kid loves history, it’s a great place to visit after walking around the Acropolis—it’s about 15-20 minutes’ walk back down the mountainside.

For a private guided tour to the Acropolis Museum with your family click HERE.

3. Family Backpacks, interactive family games, and multimedia 

There are family games for children (also available in English) which are linked to 2 different exhibitions of the museum such as the “Archaic Colours” and the “In Search of the Goddess Athena”.

There are also family backpacks linked to these 2 exhibitions that individual families can borrow from the Acropolis Museum’s Information Desk. Alternatively, family backpacks are available in the Museum’s shop.

In Search of the Goddess Athena

Go and get the family backpack and search for the 12 different representations of the Goddess Athena amongst the exhibits of the permanent collection.

The Museum has also launched the application “Athena, Goddess of the Acropolis”.

“Archaic Colors”

On the occasion of the exhibition program “Archaic Colors”, the Museum invites families to discover the archaic colors through the following games:

1. The game of discovering details in archaic statues, where color is preserved.

2. A painting box, which contains original mineral colors and pencils for children to color the Peplos Kore.

3. The DOMINO with some of the designs – in a variety of colors freely selected – that decorated mainly the clothing and earrings of the archaic korai.

Should the kids get bored with the immense number of statues, there’s a 15 minutes video presentation running on a loop on the second floor (which is where the Parthenon stones are also kept).

4. Lego Acropolis Exhibit: a hidden gem 

Once you’ve soaked up the history, take your kids to the first-floor kid’s area (the floor above the entrance/reception), which features an amazingly detailed Lego Acropolis—while it might not be quite to scale, it’s a fantastically imaginative piece that will bring the Acropolis back to life in their minds (see if you can find the modern-day ambulance hidden in among the ancient scenes!)

Some ‘cool’ facts about the Lego Acropolis model:

• The model was donated in 2014 to the Acropolis Museum by the University of Sydney’s Nicholson Museum, following the initiative of Michael Turner, Senior Curator at the Nicholson Museum.
• The Lego Acropolis model contains more than 120,000 Lego bricks and took about 300 hours to build by Ryan McNaught.
• The Acropolis Museum is preparing children’s programs in 2015 which will allow young visitors too to experiment with similar bricks.

NOTE: The Lego in the Acropolis Museum is not available as of June 2021. Please check with the museum before visiting.