Coinciding with the 10-year birthday of the Acropolis Museum, the inauguration of new exhibition space has been announced; an entire ancient neighborhood has been excavated right below the museum building revealing ancient villas, streets, workshops, and bathhouses.

"For the first time we are able to see how people lived in the shadow of the Acropolis," said Dimitrios Pandermalis, the museum's director pointing towards a gorgeous ancient courtyard and a chamber where aristocrats held symposiums.

Building a €130m museum so close to the Acropolis in an area so rich in archaeology, was a difficult task and the discovery of so many ancient ruins – some of which date back the late classical era– significantly delayed the completion of the museum.

But the 13 years of digging paid off and helped archaeologists learn even more about ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy.

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10 Years Acropolis Museum Celebration

Thursday, 20 June 2019

The archaeological excavation will be open to the public with the general admission fee ticket. The excavated area of 4,000 sq. meters comprises houses, workshops, baths and streets of an ancient Athenian neighborhood that existed from the classical to the Byzantine years, in successive phases. This impressive archaeological site will soon be enriched with the most representative findings of the excavation. Architectural ruins will be organized in a unique exhibition set that sheds light on the everyday life of an ancient neighborhood that existed in the shadow of the Acropolis. On this day the Museum exhibition areas will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

In Diros Caves you will see an underground river split up into labyrinthine watery passageways running more or less side by side among the stalactites and stalagmites created over the aeons by drop after drop of water containing calcium carbonate. The multi-coloured crystalline caverns of exceptional beauty in this 33,400-square-metre cave are reflected in the still water of the river, creating an underground paradise.

The Crossroads of Nymphs with the little white bear, the Lake of Exotic Ocean Creatures with the stone forest and incredible little haystack, the Sea of Shipwrecks complete with a sunken shipwreck, the Golden Rain, the passage through the church with chandelier and pulpit, the Suspended Fairy Beds, the Diros Chamber where there are ancient Greek mantles, the Pink Chamber and the White Chamber where there is a harp and a Royal Balcony, and the lovely Red Chamber are just some of the unparalleled wonders that nature took thousands of years to create so that we could marvel at her majesty and our own insignificance.

There are three caves at Diros, but only one is open to visitors and that is Vlyhada cave (Glyfada by another name). Tours of the wet part of the cave are conducted in small boats, safe for adults and children and last approximately thirty minutes. The temperature of the water is 14 degrees Celsius and that of the air 19 degrees Celsius whatever the season. The fossilised bones of a panther, a hippopotamus and a lion tell a tale of a different sort of life here. Finds indicate that the Diros Caves have been used as living space and storage space, as a home-industry workshop, a burial site and a place of worship. The many significant finds exhibited in the Neolithic Museum will complete your picture of the Neolithic Age.

Carved out of the limestone by the slow-moving underground river Vlychada on its way to the sea, the vast Diros Caves—the two main caves, Glyfada and Alepotrypa—were places of worship in Paleolithic and Neolithic times, and were believed to be entrances to the underworld by the ancient Greeks, and served as hiding places millennia later for Resistance fighters during World War II. Today they are one of Greece's more popular natural attractions, and a visit is an entertaining and surreal experience.

Climb aboard a boat for a 25-minute tour of Glyfada's grottoes—with formations of luminous pink, white, yellow, and red stalagmites and stalactites that resemble buildings and mythical beasts. The cave system is believed to be at least 70 km (43 mi) long, with more than 2,800 waterways, perhaps extending as far as Sparta. At the end of the tour you walk for several hundred yards (about a fifth of a mile) before emerging onto a path above the crashing surf. The close quarters in the passageways are not for the claustrophobic, and even in summer the caves are chilly. During high season you may wait up to two hours for a boat, so plan to arrive early. In low season you may have to wait until enough people arrive to fill up a boat. Opening hours change frequently.

More Information

Address: Along southern coast, 5 km (3 mi) west of Areopolis-Vathia Rd., Pirgos Dirou, Pirgos Diros Caves, 23062
Phone: 27330/52222
Cost: €15
Hours: Nov.-Mar., daily 8:30-15:00
Apr.-Oct., daily 8:30-17:30

Source: Fodors.com

The offsetting system, known as "net metering", allows households and companies that produce their own electricity through photovoltaics to share it with the local utility company that then credits them for it against the cost of electricity it provides to them.

The new smart meters will measure both the energy consumed by the producer (e.g. a household) and that provided to the utility grid. In a household's case, the bill issued every four months will factor in incoming and outgoing energy; if the incoming energy is greater, the household pays the difference, if it is the lesser of the two, the household will be credited for the next four-month cycle. A final statement will be issued at the end of the year, after which any surplus will not be carried over.

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