The Parthenon Marbles are the reason most of us walk into the British Museum at least once a year, and this weekend there is an extra reason: on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October the museum runs the Big Bayeux Bash, a free festival of workshops, live music and Normandy tastings in the Great Court. Entry is free, Room 18 is open as always, and a good Greek lunch is three minutes away on Store Street. Here is how to turn it into a Greek weekend in Bloomsbury.
Every Greek in London has an opinion about the Parthenon Marbles, and most of us have a photo in front of the frieze. Fewer people know that the museum is free, open until 20.30 on Fridays, and this weekend has a family programme that costs nothing. The British Museum is at Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG, five minutes from Tottenham Court Road station, with a quieter entrance on Montague Place. Book a free timed ticket on the museum website for priority entry, because the Bayeux weekend will be busy.
Room 18 is the long, skylit gallery where the sculptures from the Parthenon have stood since 1962. Along the two sides runs the frieze, the procession of the Panathenaic festival, with horsemen, musicians and the seated gods. At each end are what remains of the pediments, with the horses of Helios and Selene, and the metopes with the battle of Lapiths and Centaurs. The video screens near the entrance show where every block sat on the temple, useful if you are bringing children or friends who have never been to Athens. Go at 10.00 on Saturday and you will have the frieze almost to yourself before the tour groups arrive. Rooms 18a and 18b, just off the main gallery, hold more fragments that most visitors skip.
Getting there: British Museum, Great Russell Street, WC1B 3DG. Open daily 10.00 to 17.00, Fridays to 20.30, last entry 16.45. Free entry, free timed tickets recommended.
The museum borrowed the Bayeux Tapestry from France for a show that opened on 10 September and has sold out until the end of the year. You cannot get into Room 30 without a ticket, but the opening festival around it is free and needs no booking. From 11.00 to 16.00 on both days the Great Court hosts drop in workshops for children aged six and over: textile printing and embroidery, paper puppetry, a giant Norman doodle you can draw on, and on Sunday a hidden beasts collage and two short sets of medieval music by the Idrîsî Ensemble at 11.30 and 13.30. On the forecourt a solar powered bus plays live music four times a day, and in the east foyer there are Normandy snacks and samples from 12.30 to 14.30 while stocks last, with the alcohol tastings strictly for over 18s. The full programme is on the British Museum event page. The irony of a borrowed treasure from France being celebrated a few rooms from the Parthenon Marbles will not be lost on anyone, and it makes a decent topic for the walk to lunch.
Getting there: Great Court, main entrance on Great Russell Street. Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October, 11.00 to 16.00, free, first come first served.
Most visitors see Room 18 and leave, but the ground floor has a run of Greek galleries that deserve a slower walk. Room 17 holds the Nereid Monument, the reconstructed facade of a tomb from Xanthos in Lycia, with its sea nymphs stepping between the columns. Room 19, Greece: Athens, has the Caryatid from the Erechtheion, the sister of the five still on the Acropolis. Room 16 has the frieze from the Temple of Apollo at Bassae, and Room 21 the remains of the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos. Upstairs, Room 69 covers everyday Greek and Roman life and Room 73 the Greeks in southern Italy. Do all of these and you have spent a free afternoon inside the largest collection of Greek antiquities outside Greece, which is both a pleasure and a sore point.
Getting there: Rooms 16 to 23 on the ground floor, west side, next to Room 18. Rooms 69 and 73 are on the upper floor.
Three minutes from the museum, at 29 Store Street, The Life Goddess is the Greek deli and restaurant that half of Bloomsbury uses as its canteen. On Saturday it is open from 9.30 until 22.30, so it works for a coffee before the museum or a long lunch after. On Sunday 11 October it hosts the Greek List Brunch Party from 18.00 to 21.30: an unlimited buffet of Greek dishes, a new cocktail list, DJ Pascal with Greek and international hits, and the place dressed as a club for the night. It is guestlist only, so book through the event page. It is the easiest way to end a day of Parthenon Marbles and medieval puppets with a plate of gemista and a Greek crowd.
Greek stop nearby: The Life Goddess on Store Street, three minutes from the museum, for lunch on Saturday and the Greek List party on Sunday night. Nostimo at 9 Brunswick Centre, a ten minute walk via Russell Square, open daily from 11.30 to 23.30 for souvlaki and a proper Greek dinner. Elysée at 13 Percy Street in Fitzrovia, ten minutes the other way, for a late Greek night with live music and the rooftop bar.
The Bloomsbury Festival runs until 31 October and this weekend has a few events that fit around the museum. On Saturday from 10.00 the London Welsh Centre on Gray’s Inn Road holds its Welsh Autumn Market, fifty or so traders with food, drink, gifts and art, walk in and free to browse. October Gallery has a free family art day on Saturday morning, booking needed. On Sunday there is a walking tour of the Rugby Estate from the Rugby Tavern at 11.00, the choral concert Singing Brazil at Holy Cross Church at 15.00, and a culture quiz at The Lady Ottoline at 16.00. Our guide to Greek restaurants in Bloomsbury covers the festival in more detail.
Getting there: Bloomsbury Festival venues are all within fifteen minutes on foot of Russell Square station. Welsh Autumn Market: London Welsh Centre, 157 Gray’s Inn Road, Saturday 10.00 to 17.30.
The Parthenon Marbles gallery is calmest in the first hour and after 16.00. Bags are searched and wheeled cases are not allowed, so travel light. The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition itself costs from £25 and is sold out for 2026, but tickets for January to March 2027 go on sale on 21 October, worth a diary note for a second visit in the new year. Under fives are welcome at the forecourt music and the tastings, while the workshops are aimed at six and over. And if you want more Greek on Sunday, there is a bouzouki recital at Burgh House in Hampstead at 18.30, a short Northern line ride from Tottenham Court Road.
Our Greek events page is the most complete list of Greek events in the UK, and the next ten days are busy. Here is what is on:
Two exhibitions at the Hellenic Centre on Paddington Street, Fernweh and A Different Kind of Pop by Giorgos Ioannou, opened on 8 October. Listing a Greek event on Greek List is free and takes five minutes.
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