First Stop: The Met

The first stop on my trip to Greece was New York City, to visit some family and friends, and, of course some bookstores. This would probably not be worth mentioning here in connection with my trip to Greece, if it wasn't for the exciting opening of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1949, more than half of the Met's Classical collection went into storage, and, despite the heaven of culinary delights already available in Manhattan, someone decided to use the space for a restaurant instead. But now, almost sixty years later, with this opening, the museum's already impressive display of Greek and Roman artwork has doubled back to its original size. The new sections seem to be mostly Hellenistic and Roman artifacts, but the space itself is lovely, and it includes a tremendous example of an Ionic style column.