The Benaki Museum of Greek Culture

Most Athens museums freeze Greece at one moment, usually the fifth century BC. The Benaki Museum of Greek Culture does the opposite: it walks you through the entire story, from the Neolithic to the twentieth century, in a single, beautifully arranged building. It was founded in 1930 by Antonis Benakis, the son of a prominent politician and an avid collector, who donated both his collection and the family's neoclassical mansion on the corner of Koumbari Street and Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, opposite the National Garden. It remains one of the most popular private museums in Greece. The galleries are arranged chronologically over several floors, so you climb through time. The lower floors cover prehistoric, ancient Greek and Roman Greece, with exquisite gold jewellery, pottery and marble portraits. The Byzantine galleries follow, rich in icons, manuscripts and liturgical silver, and among the highlights are two early paintings attributed to Domenikos Theotokopoulos, El Greco, from before he left Crete. Then come the centuries of Venetian and Ottoman rule, with wonderful embroidery, costumes and jewellery from across the Greek world, and two complete eighteenth-century reception rooms from mansions in Kozani in northern Greece, panelled and painted wood that gives a vivid sense of how wealthy merchant families lived. The upper floors bring the story to the War of Independence and the creation of the modern Greek state, with paintings, weapons and personal relics of the revolution's heroes. The Benaki has grown into a family of museums across Athens, and some collections, including Islamic art, Chinese ceramics and toys, have moved to satellite branches. The mansion on Koumbari remains the flagship, and it is the one to visit if you only have time for one. It is especially good for understanding the costumes, crafts and traditions you will see echoed in Greek festivals and island life.

Why it belongs on a first or second trip: after the Acropolis and the archaeological museums, the Benaki fills in the two thousand years that most visitors skip. It explains why Greek churches look the way they do, where the island costumes and embroidery come from, and how a nation emerged in the 1820s. The museum is also simply pleasant to be in: galleries are not too large, labels are clear, and the building itself, a grand family home, gives the visit a domestic, intimate feel.

Practicalities: allow two to three hours if you want to see all the floors properly, or ninety minutes for the highlights. Opening days and hours vary through the week and the museum is closed on some weekdays, and admission prices and any reduced or free sessions change from time to time, so check the current schedule before you go. Temporary exhibitions sometimes carry a separate charge. The rooftop cafe and restaurant, with its terrace facing the National Garden and the city, is a destination in its own right for lunch or a drink; you may be able to reach it without visiting the galleries. The museum shop is excellent for books, jewellery replicas and gifts.

Making a day of it: the Benaki sits at the start of the Vasilissis Sofias museum mile. The Museum of Cycladic Art is a few minutes' walk away on the same avenue, and the Byzantine and Christian Museum a little further on, so you can easily combine two of them in an afternoon. Across the road, the National Garden offers shade, ducks and a playground, and the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Syntagma Square is just beyond. Syntagma metro station is about ten minutes' walk away, and Kolonaki's cafes are uphill behind the museum.