Priceless artifacts from Greece's Golden Age, a dazzling display of czarist treasures, the famed bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti in a storied venue -- these are some of Europe's newest attractions.

In Athens, Greece's long-awaited new Acropolis Museum has finally opened after years of delay. Situated at the foot of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the new $180-million, three-level facility designed by renowned architect Bernard Tschumi displays hundreds of ceramics and sculptures formerly kept in a small museum atop the Acropolis.

Among them is a reconstruction of the Parthenon frieze, including copies of the Elgin Marbles, the original sculptures that were dismantled and taken to London in 1806. Greece has long sought, without success, to have those sculptures returned to Athens from the British Museum.

Holland's new Hermitage Amsterdam museum opened in June with At the Russian Court, a display of more than 1,800 treasures from the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The Amsterdam facility is the only branch in the West of the Russian museum, which once was a czarist palace. The exhibit will run until Jan. 31.

In Berlin, the Neues Museum will reopen Oct. 16 after lying in ruins for 60 years. Once again, the bombed-out facility will display its renowned Egyptian Collection, including the bust of Nefertiti. Completion of the decade-long restoration will mark a milestone in the restoration of the five great museums that make up Museum Island, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Several other new museums are making their debuts in Europe as well this year.

A massive Darwin Centre with millions of plants and insects opens Tuesday at London's Natural History Museum. The heart of the new facility is the Cocoon, a 225-foot-long, eight-story structure featuring such displays as huge tarantulas and three-foot-high poisonous plants.

In June, Brussels opened its Rene Magritte Museum on Place Royale, not far from Belgium's Royal Palace. The museum displays 180 of the celebrated 20th century surrealist's works, plus letters, photos and other related material.

Of special interest to Americans, a new exhibit entitled From King to Obama opens Sept. 25 at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway. The exhibit portrays the American civil rights movement in the 1960s and similarities between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama in their values, strategies, rhetoric and public impact. The exhibit runs through next May.

Travelers to Europe in the next few months will find the going easier at two European cities with major new airport facilities and another with a spectacular new train station.

Barcelona, one of Europe's 10 busiest airports, has just opened its new $1.7-billion Terminal T1, adding 166 check-in desks that will enable the airport to service 55 million passengers a year -- about 100,000 people a day.

A new airport capable of handing 7.5 million passengers a year will open in November in Larnaca, Cyprus.

Meanwhile, Belgium is hoping the stunning new train station in Liege designed by celebrated Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava will bring a bounty of visitors to that city, much as the titanium-sheathed Guggenheim Museum did for Bilbao, Spain. Calatrava's soaring roof rises to 115 feet in a sweeping arc 660 feet long, dominating views of Liege. The city also has just reopened its Grand Curtius Museum featuring archaeology and decorative arts after a $70-million renovation.