Goulandris Museum Athens

Goulandris Museum Athens tickets: three Van Goghs in Pangrati, a €12 ticket, and when the €16 version is the better buy

Goulandris Museum Athens tickets come in two honest sizes. The plain entry ticket from GetYourGuide costs about €12, is sold by the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation itself, and covers the permanent collection: three Van Goghs, a Cezanne, a Monet and a Gauguin on the first floor, Miro, Kandinsky, Pollock, Giacometti and Bacon above them, and the Greek painters of the 20th century at the top of the building. The two €16 tickets, sold on GetYourGuide by Clio Muse, add the temporary exhibition and a smartphone audio tour. Both carry free cancellation, which the museum's own dated tickets do not. What you are buying is a fixed time slot and free cancellation up to 24 hours before.

One thing to settle first, because the name trips people up. This page is about the art museum of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation at 13 Eratosthenous Street in Pangrati, behind the Panathenaic Stadium. It is not the Museum of Cycladic Art in Kolonaki, which also carries the Goulandris name and which holds marble figurines rather than paintings, and it is not the Goulandris Natural History Museum out in Kifisia. If you want Van Gogh and Picasso, you want Pangrati. The short version of what follows: book the €12 ticket for a weekday morning or a Friday evening, take the €16 version while a temporary show is on, allow about an hour and a half to two hours, remember that Tuesday is the closing day, and pair it with the Benaki or the Cycladic, both within ten minutes on foot.

Guided tour or plain ticket?

Plain ticket, because a plain ticket is all either partner sells. Headout lists no product for this museum at all, and GetYourGuide has no live guided tour of it. What GetYourGuide does have is the Foundation's own Goulandris Museum Athens entry ticket, rated 4.6 from 56 reviews, with the museum itself as the activity provider. It is valid for one day, tied to a time slot you choose at checkout, and includes entry to the permanent collection, a personal audio guide device in English, French or Greek, free WiFi and access to the shop and the cafe-restaurant. It can be cancelled up to 24 hours before for a full refund, and you can reserve now and pay later. What it does not include is the temporary exhibition, which the museum sells as a separate or combined ticket.

That is a good fit for this collection. The Goulandris is a private museum of modern art arranged over four upper floors in a clear sequence, from the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists on the first floor to Greek art of the 20th century on the fourth, with the labels and the free audio guide doing the explaining. The works are the kind you already know the names of, which is precisely why they reward unhurried looking more than a commentary walking you past them. A guide is a luxury here, not the necessity it is at the Acropolis or the National Archaeological Museum.

If you would still rather have someone talk you round, the Foundation runs its own English-language tour of the permanent collection every Thursday from 11:00 to 12:30. It costs €16, or €14 concession, needs a minimum of three people and is booked directly with the Foundation by phone or email rather than through a partner. Groups of ten or more must book ahead in any case.

The alternative worth knowing about is the pair of Clio Muse tickets on GetYourGuide, both listed at €18 and selling at about €16. One combines the museum with a smartphone audio tour of the National Garden, the other with an audio tour of central Athens. Both state that they include the permanent collection and the temporary exhibitions, and both carry the same free cancellation. Neither has reviews yet. While a temporary show is running, €16 is the combined price either way, so the Clio Muse version adds the audio tour for the walk there at no extra cost. Between shows, the €12 ticket is the one to take.

Tickets and prices

Goulandris Museum Athens prices below are a snapshot from September 2026. The partner page shows the live figure before you pay. The table is less about saving money than about matching the ticket to what is actually on when you visit.

Ticket	Price	Includes
Entry ticket (GetYourGuide, sold by the Foundation)	from about €12	Permanent collection, timed slot, audio guide device, free WiFi. Free cancellation up to 24 hours before	Book
E-ticket with National Garden audio tour (GetYourGuide, Clio Muse)	from about €16 (list €18)	Permanent collection and temporary exhibitions, smartphone audio tours of the museum and the National Garden. Free cancellation	Book
Ticket with Athens city audio tour (GetYourGuide, Clio Muse)	from about €16 (list €18)	Permanent collection and temporary exhibitions, smartphone audio tours of the museum and of Athens. Free cancellation	Book
Foundation guided tour in English (Thursdays 11:00)	€16, concession €14	90-minute live tour of the permanent collection, booked with the Foundation	Book

The concession rate applies to visitors over 65, anyone aged 13 to 26, students, European Youth Card holders, the registered unemployed and enlisted citizens. Entry is free for children up to 12, for visitors with disabilities and one companion, for teachers accompanying school visits, for ICOM, ICOMOS and AICA cardholders, members of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece, qualified tour guides, journalists and Foundation members. Bring the relevant ID. Concession rates are verified against ID on arrival, so a couple over 65 or a family with teenagers should bring it. The partner ticket is an adult ticket at full price.

There are no free days. The Foundation is private, so the Ministry of Culture calendar of free-entry dates that covers the state museums and archaeological sites does not apply here, and 28 October, a free day at the Acropolis and the National Archaeological Museum, is in fact one of the days this museum closes. It is also not part of either GetYourGuide pass: neither the Athens City Pass nor the Flex Pass names the Goulandris Foundation among its attractions, and Headout sells nothing for the museum at all. At €12 the gap is small, but a pass will not get you through the door.

Opening hours and best time to visit

The Goulandris Museum Athens keeps one timetable all year, with no summer and winter split. It opens Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 10:00 to 18:00 and Friday from 10:00 to 20:00. Tuesday is the weekly closing day. The last ticket is sold 30 minutes before closing and the galleries admit visitors until 20 minutes before, so 17:40 on most days and 19:40 on Fridays. The shop keeps the same hours. The cafe-restaurant opens Wednesday to Monday from 10:00 to 18:00 and does not stay open for the Friday late night.

The museum also closes on 1 January, 6 January, Clean Monday, 25 March, Orthodox Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, 1 May, Whit Monday, 15 August, 28 October and 25 December. On Orthodox Good Friday it opens late, from 12:00 to 18:00. Two of these catch travellers out: Tuesday, which is also the closing day at the Benaki and the Cycladic, so a Tuesday plan for this corner of Athens falls apart entirely, and 28 October, because the state museums are free that day and visitors arrive expecting the same here.

The quiet slot is Friday evening. The 20:00 closing is the only late opening in the week, and arriving around 17:30 leaves a comfortable two hours with the day visitors gone and Pangrati's tavernas a few streets away for afterwards. Otherwise take the first hour after 10:00 on a weekday. The booked ticket is about fixing a slot and keeping free cancellation, not about a queue. It is a booked arrival time, and the Foundation's own terms say the slot you choose is the time you are expected to be there. Peak season matters less than at the big sites, although a well-reviewed temporary show brings its own Athenian crowd at weekends.

How long to allow: the museum gives no figure. The official guided tour runs 90 minutes, and the GetYourGuide ticket describes four floors with an audio guide, so an hour and a half to two hours is a fair plan, plus half an hour if you add the temporary exhibition and time for the cafe.

Getting there

The Goulandris Museum Athens stands at 13 Eratosthenous Street in Pangrati, the residential quarter behind the Panathenaic Stadium, the marble stadium Athenians call the Kallimarmaro. Eratosthenous Street runs up from the stadium, so if you are already there you are about three to five minutes away on foot by our own estimate. The Foundation gives distances rather than minutes: Evangelismos on Line 3 is 900 metres away and Syntagma on Lines 2 and 3 is 950 metres, which works out at about 12 minutes from either station at a normal pace. GetYourGuide's more generous figure is 20 minutes from Syntagma. From Syntagma the pleasant route is through the National Garden, coming out by the stadium.

Buses 203, 204, 209, 250, 550, 054 and 732 and trolleybuses 2, 4, 10 and 11 all stop nearby. Do not drive: there is no parking at the museum, and the nearest paid car parks are the Kallimarmaro at 150 metres, Evangelismos at 500 metres and Polis Park at 800 metres.

The neighbours make the trip worth more. The Benaki Museum main building is about eight minutes on foot back towards Vasilissis Sofias, the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Byzantine and Christian Museum are about ten minutes each along the same avenue, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus is about eleven minutes down past the stadium. That is a full museum afternoon without going near the Acropolis queue.

What to see: highlights

• The Van Goghs, first floor. Three of them, on the floor the Foundation calls Classics of Modern Art: "Olive Picking" from December 1889, "The Alyscamps" from the autumn of 1888, and "Still Life with Coffee Pot" from May 1888. Three Van Goghs in one private Athens collection is the reason this museum is on the map, and the reason to come in the first hour when the room is empty.
• Cezanne, Monet and Gauguin, same floor. Cezanne's "Portrait of the Artist Looking Over His Shoulder" of 1883 to 1884, Monet's "Rouen Cathedral in the Morning (Pink Dominant)" of 1894, and Gauguin's late "Still Life with Grapefruits" of 1901 or 1902. Degas's "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen" and Rodin's "Eternal Springtime" hold the sculpture side of the floor, and an El Greco, "The Veil of Saint Veronica", opens the sequence.
• Two early Picassos. "Young Man with Bouquet" of 1905 and "Nude Woman with Raised Arms" of 1907 hang two years and a revolution apart. They are the hinge between the first-floor classics and the century above.
• Glances at the 20th Century, second and third floors. Miro's "The Grasshopper" of 1926, Kandinsky's "Both Striped" of 1932, Pollock's "Number 13, 1950", Giacometti's "Woman of Venice V" of 1956, Francis Bacon's "Three Studies for Self-Portrait" of 1972 and Anselm Kiefer's "The Painter's Studio" of 1983. Chagall's "Portrait of E.B.G." of 1969 is a portrait of Elise Goulandris herself, a reminder that everything here was bought by two people for their own walls.
• Modern and Contemporary Greek Art, third and fourth floors. Tsarouchis's "Sailor Sitting at the Table, Pink Background" of 1980, Moralis's "Erotic" of 1977 and Ghika's "Balcony with Horizontal Pilasters" of 1954. These are the floors most visitors have not seen a version of elsewhere, and for many people they turn out to be the part they talk about afterwards.
• The temporary exhibition. Until 4 October 2026 the show is "Jannis Psychopedis: Landscapes of Memory. The Ones I Kept", about 70 works from 1962 to today that the artist kept for himself. From 31 October 2026 to 15 February 2027 it is replaced by "Belle Epoque". Either needs the €16 combined ticket or one of the Clio Muse products. The €12 ticket covers the permanent floors only.

Tips before you go

Luggage, backpacks and large bags go into the cloakroom at the entrance, and anything larger than 55 by 35 by 25 centimetres is not accepted at all, so leave the suitcase at the hotel. The GetYourGuide ticket terms rule out food and drink in the galleries and flash photography. The museum's own visitor page says nothing further about cameras, so keep the flash off and follow the signs. Free WiFi runs through the building. The audio guide device is free but subject to availability, and the desk asks for a name and a mobile number before handing one over, so have both ready.

Access is the best of any big-name collection in the city. The Foundation describes wheelchair access as easy, the lifts are spacious, and wheelchairs, walkers and children's prams are lent free of charge against an ID card or passport. Visitors with reduced mobility get priority access, tours are offered in Greek Sign Language, and there are programmes for visitors on the autism spectrum. Children up to 12 enter free, which with the free prams makes this the easiest art museum in Athens for a family.

The cafe-restaurant, an urban-garden space between the ground floor and the first, needs no ticket and serves breakfast, brunch, lunch and coffee from 10:00 to 18:00 every day except Tuesday. The ground-floor shop keeps the museum's hours. In summer the building is a good answer to the afternoon heat: cool floors, a lift between them and a shaded cafe, a few minutes from the stadium and the National Garden.

A simple plan: book the Goulandris Museum Athens entry ticket on GetYourGuide for a Wednesday or Thursday at 10:00, or a Friday at 17:30, walk through the National Garden from Syntagma, and go straight up to the first floor for the Van Goghs while the room is yours. Work up through the 20th-century floors, finish with the Greek painters on the fourth, and come down for coffee. If the Psychopedis or Belle Epoque show is running and you want it, take the €16 Clio Muse ticket instead.

How to book, in four steps

1. Take the plain ticket. Neither partner sells a Goulandris Museum Athens guided tour, and this collection does not need one. The free audio guide covers the works. The GetYourGuide entry ticket at about €12 adds a fixed slot and free cancellation. If a temporary show is on and you want it, take one of the two Clio Muse tickets at about €16 instead. If you qualify for the concession or for free entry, bring the ID that proves it.
2. Pick the day, and never a Tuesday. Friday is the only evening opening, with last entry at 19:40. Every other open day closes at 18:00 with last entry at 17:40. Check the holiday list above if you are in Athens around Easter, in mid-August or on 28 October.
3. Book early with free cancellation. The GetYourGuide tickets can be cancelled up to 24 hours before for a full refund and paid later, so there is no cost to booking the moment your Athens dates are set and moving the slot if the plan changes. Arrive at the time on the ticket. That is what the slot means here.
4. Pair it with a neighbour. Start at the Panathenaic Stadium, walk up Eratosthenous Street to the museum, and after lunch cross to the Benaki or the Cycladic on Vasilissis Sofias, both about ten minutes away. Van Gogh in the morning and five-thousand-year-old marble in the afternoon is one of the better days Athens offers.

Nearby and combinations

The Goulandris Museum Athens is the southern anchor of the museum cluster around Vasilissis Sofias, and it combines most naturally with the private collections on that avenue. Our Museum of Cycladic Art page covers the marble figurines in Kolonaki, about ten minutes on foot and closed on the same Tuesday, so the two pair cleanly on any other day. The Benaki main building is eight minutes away and the Byzantine and Christian Museum ten. If it is the painting you came for, our National Gallery tickets page covers the state collection of Greek art on the other side of Evangelismos, which picks up the Greek story where the Goulandris fourth floor leaves off.

Because the museum is not included in the Athens City Pass or the Flex Pass, buy it as a single ticket even if you are holding a pass for the Acropolis and the state museums. The passes remain worth a look for the rest of an itinerary. They simply do not cover this stop, and a pass holder's Pangrati day works fine as pass in the morning at the Temple of Olympian Zeus, eleven minutes away, and the Goulandris after lunch.

For the wider picture, our Best museums in Athens guide ranks the city's collections and suggests which pair well in a day. For visitors who arrive thinking of Athens as antiquities only, the Goulandris Foundation is the useful correction: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso, Pollock and Bacon, twelve minutes from Syntagma, for €12 and without a queue.