Acropolis Museum opens in Athens.

We first went to Athens in 1998. The city was dirty, congested, and really difficult for non-Greeks to navigate. On top of that - literally - the smog was so bad that you couldn't see anything from the Acropolis but a thick blanket of brown.

So when we returned in 2005, we weren't expecting much. But it was gorgeous. The city had completely transformed itself to host the 2004 Olympics. The air was clear, the archaeological sites were terrific, even the airport was clean and efficient with a beautiful Sofitel walking distance from the terminal.

Now, with the opening of the long-awaited Acropolis Museum, there's even more reason to go to Athens. A few hundred yards from the Parthenon at the foot of the Acropolis, the sleek, glass-and-concrete museum cost $180 milllion and took eight years to complete.

The first gallery displays finds from the slopes of the Acropolis. A glass floor lets visitors see the excavations below. Sculpture from the Archaic period is in the next gallery. But the highlight of the museum is the metopes, friezes, and pediments from the Parthenon itself and the adjacent buildings, the Propylaia, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Erectheion. The Caryatids, or maidens, that supported the porch of the Erechtheion are exquisite.

The third level of the 226,000 square-foot complex has been reserved for the Elgin Marbles, which Greece has asked the British Museum to return. Britain has long justified keeping the marbles by claiming that Greece has no place suitable to display them. Now that Greece has a state-of-the art facility, it's time for Britain to repatriate them.

For more information, visit the museum's web site at http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr. To view the site in English, select it from the pulldown menu at the upper right.

Acropolis Museum Photo Flickr: MPD01605