The Acropolis Museum: Hours, Tickets and Acropolis Athens Tours
The museum at the foot of the rock holds what came down from it: the Parthenon's sculpture, the Caryatids and the offerings buried after 480 BC. It has its own €20 ticket and its own hours. Planning an athens acropolis and museum tour? Here is how the two fit together.
Where the museum is, 300 m from the Parthenon
The Acropolis Museum stands in Makrygianni, about 300 m south-east of the Parthenon, at Dionysiou Areopagitou 15. Its entrance faces the start of the pedestrian street that runs under the south slope, so you can walk from its door to the Acropolis gates in a few minutes.
- Metro: Akropoli station, Line 2 (Anthoupoli–Elliniko), a short walk from the museum door.
- Bus and trolley: the Makrigianni stop.
- Phone: 210 900 09 00.
The museum opened on 20 June 2009, replacing an older museum on the rock itself, which has been closed to the public since 2007.
Tickets: €20, reduced €10
The museum ticket is separate from the Acropolis ticket. One does not get you into the other, and there is no combined ticket. A ticket covers every gallery and the excavation below, is valid for one visit on its date, and cannot be reused another day.
| Ticket | Price | Where to get it |
|---|---|---|
| General admission | €20 | Ticket desk or the museum's e-ticketing service |
| Reduced admission | €10 | Ticket desk only, with proof of eligibility |
| Free admission | €0 | Ticket desk only, with proof of eligibility |
| Temporary exhibition | €10 general, €5 reduced | Ticket desk or e-ticketing |
Buy online only from the museum's own site, ending in .gr. The museum warns that a copycat site ending in .org collects money for tickets it cannot issue.
Opening hours, winter and summer
Friday is the long day all year, to 22:00. In summer the museum closes at 17:00 on Mondays, so a Monday is the wrong day to leave it until late afternoon.
| Day | Winter, 1 Nov–31 Mar | Summer, 1 Apr–31 Oct |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 09:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30) | 09:00–17:00 (last entry 16:30) |
| Tuesday–Thursday | 09:00–17:00 (16:30) | 09:00–20:00 (19:30) |
| Friday | 09:00–22:00 (21:30) | 09:00–22:00 (21:30) |
| Saturday–Sunday | 09:00–20:00 (19:30) | 09:00–20:00 (19:30) |
| Excavation below | Daily 09:00–17:00 | Mon 09:00–17:00, Tue–Sun 09:00–20:00 |
Gallery staff start clearing the rooms 15 minutes before closing time.
Free days and closed days at the museum
- Free admission: 6 March, 25 March, 18 May and 28 October. In 2026 the museum is also free on 27 September from 17:00 to 20:00, for European Heritage Days.
- Closed: 1 January, Orthodox Easter Sunday, 1 May, 25 and 26 December.
- Short days: 24 and 31 December, 09:00–15:00; Orthodox Good Friday, 12:00–18:00; Orthodox Holy Saturday, 09:00–15:00.
The free days are not the same as the Acropolis's. 25 March is free at the museum and closed on the rock; 18 April is free on the rock only.
Before you go in: bags, photos and security
Every visitor goes through an X-ray security check at the entrance, so leave large bags at your hotel. Backpacks and other bulky items go into the free cloakroom on the ground floor. You may take photographs and film for your own use in every gallery except the Archaic Acropolis Gallery, but never with flash or a tripod. Wi-Fi is free throughout. The shop and café on the ground floor need no ticket; the second-floor restaurant needs a free pass from the ticket desk.
What is on each floor
The museum shows finds from one place only, the Acropolis and its slopes. You go up through time: the slopes, then the Archaic sanctuary, then the Parthenon at the top.
| Level | Gallery | What is there |
|---|---|---|
| Level −1 | The archaeological excavation | Streets, houses and baths of an ancient neighborhood |
| Ground floor | Gallery of the Acropolis Slopes | Finds from the sanctuaries and houses on the slopes, over a glass floor |
| First floor | Archaic Acropolis Gallery | Korai and offerings from the sanctuary before 480 BC |
| First floor, west | Periklean monuments | The Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Caryatids |
| First floor, north | 5th century BC to the end of antiquity | Later sculpture from the rock |
| Third floor | The Parthenon Gallery | The frieze, metopes and pediments of the Parthenon |
The excavation under the museum
When the museum was built, the digging uncovered an ancient Athenian neighborhood, and the building was designed around it. You look down on it through glass floors, and since June 2019 you can walk its streets. People lived here from the 4th millennium BC to the 12th century AD: you pass houses with courtyards and wells, workshops with water cisterns, and mansions with private baths. A small museum of the excavation opened at its southern edge in June 2024. Entry is from the museum's front courtyard on the same ticket, but the excavation closes at 17:00 in winter, earlier than the galleries on Fridays and weekends.
The Parthenon Gallery on the third floor
The top floor is built around a core with the same orientation and size as the Parthenon's inner chamber. The frieze runs round its outer walls in the order it had on the temple, set lower so you can see it. The metopes hang in pairs between steel columns that match the temple's own count, and the pediment figures stand on low bases at each end. Originals sit beside plaster casts of the pieces held in the British Museum and elsewhere, so the gaps are plain to see. The glass walls look straight across to the Parthenon, about 300 m away.
The Caryatids on the first floor
Six marble maidens held up the roof of the Erechtheion's south porch. Five stand on a balcony on the first floor, where you can walk right round them; the sixth, removed by Lord Elgin's team in 1804, is in the British Museum, and her place is left empty. They were carved around 420–415 BC, the date the museum gives for Kore B. The building's own inscriptions call them simply korai, maidens. They came off the monument in 1979 to protect them from air pollution, and the six on the porch today are copies.
Tours that add the museum
Most guided walks sell the museum as an option rather than in the base fare, and the museum ticket is often charged on top. Read the option before you book, so you do not pay for the same €20 ticket twice.
| Tour | Museum ticket | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Small group walk and museum, both tickets in | In the fare | 3 hours |
| Small group, museum and a Greek lunch | In the fare | 5 hours |
| Shared guided walk with museum option, from Mitseon 2 | On the option with tickets | 2 hours |
| Shared walk and museum from Mitseon 2 | On the option with tickets | 3 hours to 4 hours |
| Shared walk and museum from Porinou 5 | On the option with tickets | 2 hours |
| Shared walk and museum from Dionysiou Areopagitou 3 | On the option with tickets | 3 hours 30 minutes |
| Four-hour shared walk with a museum option | On the museum option | 4 hours |
| Private archaeologist, museum or Agora option | Not included (€20 on the day) | 3 hours |
| Private archaeologist, ends inside the site | On the 3-hour option | 2 hours |
Seeing the rock and the museum on the same day?
Pick a tour that walks you through both, and check whether the museum ticket is in the fare or bought at the door.
Next: see what the sculpture came from on Acropolis facts, read the history of the Acropolis, or compare every fare on Acropolis Athens Tours.