As has become traditional, the athletic competitions of the Athens Olympic Games will be complemented by a Cultural Olympiad featuring various museum shows, concerts, dance performances, theater, and other special events. In May of 2003, for example, Christos Lambrakis, president of the Athens Concert Hall (the Megaron), announced that it would be the site of many special events in conjunction with the Olympics, including the staging of La Traviata in May of 2004. In the case of Athens, and Greece in general, there are already so many unique and notable cultural events during the summer months that no one interested in this aspect of Greece will feel disappointed. Many cultural institutions are planning to present special shows that will reflect some aspect of the Olympics.

Athens' museums alone have some of the world's single-most outstanding collections: the newly renovated National Museum (with its comprehensive collection of unique objects from the ancient Greek world) is scheduled to reopen in time for the Olympics; the brand new Acropolis Museum will probably not be completed in time for the Olympics (and in any case was unable to persuade the British to loan them any of the Elgin marbles) but the existent Acropolis Museum is still a treat; the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art; the Benaki and Byzantine Museums (both with world-class collections of Byzantine and medieval art), and the Museum of Greek Folk Art. The Museum of the Olympic Games and the Archaeological Museum at Olympia are, of course, of particular interest to Olympics visitors. And of course museums elsewhere in Greece have other distinctive collections -- just to single out one, the Archaeological Museum in Iraklion, Crete, has the world's major collection of Minoan art.

Beyond museums, there will be a constant series of theatrical and dance performances as well as concerts for all kinds of music by world-class groups or individuals. In Athens itself, these will be part of the annual Athens Festival -- with most performances at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the foot of the Acropolis. There are also the annual Sound and Light performances that focus on the Acropolis. Within a same-day return visit from Athens is the Epidaurus Festival, with performances of classical Greek dramas in one of the world's greatest ancient amphitheaters. Elsewhere throughout Greece, there are several other regularly scheduled cultural events: the summer-long arts festival of Iraklion, Crete; an International Music Festival on Santorini; dramas at the ancient amphitheater at Dodona, in northwest Greece; the Sound and Light and Traditional Folk Dance performances on Rhodes.

For the most up-to-date information, check out www.cultural-olympiad.gr, which is the umbrella organization handling cultural events during the build up to and for the 2004 Olympics.