Museum of Popular Instruments
Diogenous 1-3, Plateia Aeridon, Plaka 105 56 Athens
Tel: 210 3250198
Open daily: 10:00-14:00, Wednesday: 12:00-18:00
Mondays closed - Free entrance
The Museum is housed in the historical Lassanis Mansion, built in 1842 in the heart of Plaka. The collection of about 1200 Greek popular musical instruments, the richest in Greece and one of the most important in Europe, is the fruit of fifty years of personal research and study by the founder of the museum Fivos Anoyanakis. About half of the instruments of the Anoyanakis collection are on public display spread over three floors and divided into four sections and grouped by instrument family. Since musical instruments are not only to be looked-at but also to be heard, each showcase is equipped with headphones for listening to short musical pieces played with the displayed instrument. The collection comprises representative Greek traditional musical instruments from antiquity to the present day, including defia (tambourines), toumbelekia (pottery drums), flutes, tsabounes (bagpipes) and outia (short-necked lutes).