Prehistoric Museum of Thera

The Prehistoric Museum of Thera is one of Fira’s unmissable highlights. Opened in 2000, it was created to showcase the extraordinary finds from Akrotiri, the Bronze Age city often nicknamed the “Pompeii of the Aegean.” Located about ten kilometers south of Fira, Akrotiri is where the frescoes and artifacts on display here were unearthed.

From the moment you step inside, you’re transported back thousands of years. The collections span from the Neolithic era to the Minoan period around 1600 BC. Among the most famous pieces are the stunning frescoes: the “Spring Fresco,” bursting with flowers in vivid detail, and the “Blue Monkeys Fresco,” astonishing for its modern feel and for colors that have remained vibrant after more than three millennia.

The museum also features huge storage jars painted with swallows, pitchers imported from mainland Greece, delicate gold jewelry, and even a beautifully preserved statuette of an ibex. You’ll also find obsidian tools carved from volcanic rock, proof of how ingeniously the island’s early inhabitants made use of their environment. Each section of the museum explores a different aspect of prehistoric Thera—its navigation and trade, its rituals and beliefs, its daily life. Together, they reveal a brilliant civilization, closely linked with Crete and connected across the Mediterranean world. The visit doesn’t take long, but it makes the perfect complement to a trip to Akrotiri itself.

There, you walk through the city’s ruins; here, you encounter its treasures and frescoes, which bring a vanished world vividly back to life—a true journey into the heart of the Aegean Bronze Age.