Do not look for another hotel near archaeological sites or areas where cultural events take place and museums are located. You have found the Athens Poseidon Hotel.
Acropolis Museum
The Acropolis Museum was firstly conceived by C. Karamanlis in September 1976. He also selected the site, upon which the Museum was finally built, decades later. With his penetrating vision, C. Karamanlis defined the need and established the means for a new Museum equipped with all technical facilities for the conservation of the invaluable Greek artifacts, where eventually the Parthenon sculptures will be reunited. For these reasons, architectural competitions were conducted in 1976 and 1979, but without success.
In 1989, Melina Mercouri, who as Minister of Culture inextricably identified her policies with the claim for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, initiated an international architectural competition. The results of this competition were annulled following the discovery of a large urban settlement on the Makriyianni site dating from Archaic to Early Christian Athens.
This discovery now needed to be integrated into the New Museum that was to be built on this site. In the year 2000, the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum announced an invitation to a new tender, which was realized in accord with the Directives of the European Union. It is this Tender that has come to fruition with the awarding of the design tender to Bernard Tschumi with Michael Photiadis and their associates and the completion of construction in 2007. Today, the new Acropolis Museum has a total area of 25,000 square meters, with exhibition space of over 14,000 square meters, ten times more than that of the old museum on the Hill of the Acropolis. The new Museum offers all the amenities expected in an international museum of the 21st century.
The Acropolis of Athens is a rocky hill of high156 m. above sea level and 70 m. from the level of the city of Athens. The top of the trapezoid shaped length of 300 m. And a maximum width of 150 m. The hill is inaccessible from all sides except the west, where the fortified entrance, is decorated with the brilliant Propylaea. The Parthenon is a temple, built in honor of the goddess Athena, protector of the city of Athens.
It was the result of cooperation of important architects and sculptors in the mid 5th century BC century. The era of the construction of paralleled with the ambitious expansion plans of Athens and prestige policy followed towards its allies during the Athenian hegemony in Ancient Greece.
The Foundation’s largest single gift is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), in Athens, to be completed in 2016. The project’s total budget of $831mil (€596mil) includes two grants of $6 mil (€5mil) each to the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera respectively, aiming to support the organizations’ transition to their new facilities.
The project, designed by Renzo Piano, includes the new facilities of the National Library of Greece, and of the Greek National Opera, as well as the Stavros Niarchos Park. The SNFCC is a testament and a commitment to the country’s future. It is also an engine of short- to mid-term economic stimulus.
The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a stone theatre structure located on the southwest slope of the Acropolis of Athens. It was built in 161 AD by the Athenian magnate Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla. It was originally a steep-sloped theater with a three-story stone front wall and a wooden roof made of expensive, cedar of Lebanon timber. It was used as a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000. It lasted intact until it was destroyed and turned into a ruin by the Heruli in 267 AD. More information here.
Cape Sounion, the southernmost tip of Attica, is a significant strategic point, whence the city-state of Athens controlled the sea passage to the Aegean Sea and Piraeus, the central port, as well as the Lavrion peninsula, comprising the rich silver mines thanks to which Athens emerged as a leading power in the 5th century BC.
After the end of the Persian wars, in the years of Pericles, decided the construction of the Parthenon, whose work began in 447 and ended in 438. While there already was being built the Parthenon, began the construction of the Temple of Poseidon, 444 BC. In four short years, in 440 BC the church was ready. Although we do not know the architect must be the same who built and the Hephaisteion (known as Thiseio) Athens. More information here.
Technopolis City of Athens has become a hub of cultural events within one of the city’s most important industrial monuments, thus upgrading a historic area of the capital and creating another focal point in the cultural identity of Athens.
Every year, a wide variety of cultural events are held in Technopolis: music, dance, theatre and performing arts, plastic and applied arts, educational programs for children, temporary exhibitions, as well as initiatives for the development of entrepreneurship and the promotion of innovation, attracting over 700,000 visitors annually. Technopolis – City of Athens offers quality entertainment, educational and cultural activities in reasonable prices while at the same time it supports the social work of the city’s major organizations.
The Benaki Museum ranks among the major institutions that have enriched the material assets of the Greek state. It is also the oldest museum in Greece operating as a Foundation under Private Law.
Through its extensive collections that cover several different cultural fields and its more general range of activities serving more than one social need, the Benaki Museum is perhaps the sole instance of a complex structure within the broader network of museum foundations in Greece.
Floating Maritime Museum Battleship “Georgios Averof”
The armored cruiser more precisely shielded evdromo- Averof is a historical ship of modern Greece. Although referred to as battleship, is armored cruiser class PISA (it was an exact copy of the Italian armored cruiser «Pisa» which was built in 1907 on a draft of the shipbuilder Joseph Orlando), which was built in the shipyard of Orlando in Livorno, Italy the period 1908 – 1911, and then joined the Greek Royal Navy. This is the only example of its type (Armored Cruiser) maintained in the world today.
The characteristic neo-Gothic building of the early 20th century standing there where “double mix” did Palaio Faliro meeting place of bourgeois society of the time. With symmetrical towers and battlements, the stone house on a plot of one acre, is associated with the shipping of Hydra family Kouloura who acted as the mid 20th century. And can remotely impresses as one of the few surviving buildings of this kind in the suburbs of Athens, close but shows obvious signs left over the time and neglect. Rusted railings, cracked the grand marble staircase front entrance, neglected garden, ramshackle many parts of the stone walls.
The tower looks pulled out through a story which awaits the end happy. Which is none other than its function as the Museum of Childhood and Toys, Annex of the Benaki Museum, housing a collection of toys donated to the Benaki Museum by Maria Argyriadi. The building was acquired by the Benaki Museum in 1980 with a donation of Vera Kouloura but the renovation and expansion is a project pending twenty years. The 20,000 objects in the collection waiting to find the right space to emerge.
72 Posidonos Avenue
