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Day 13: Our visit to the National Archeological Museum occupied the good part of an afternoon and, as you might expect, it contained archeological treasures beyond measure. While I studied Greek history in high school some 23 years ago, let’s just say that the subject was not still fresh in my mind. The Museum brought bits and pieces of knowledge back to me as we moved from one period to the next.

There is so much art here that it would take weeks to truly appreciate it all. My approach was to enter a room, read the establishing description of the period or style depicted, and then to walk around the room until I found the one or two pieces that I had an affinity with.

Pictured here are two pieces that I really enjoyed. The first is a statue of a boy riding a horse, from around 100BC, in which the boy is depicted with great expression and cloak flowing in the breeze. The second is a portrait in marble of an unidentified man from the 2nd century BC, found in the Ancient Agora in Athens.

While not a criticism, this was one of those old-school museums in which each work is simply displayed and captioned without any opportunities for interactivity. An audio tour - such as the one we enjoyed at the Churchill Museum in London - would also have been fantastically helpful.

When I picked up my backpack from checked luggage I had an unexpected lecture from the attendant who reminded me that there were thousands of Greek antiquities still in foreign hands in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and that they all ought to be returned to Greece forthwith. I wished her luck, to which she replied, “We’ll need it.”