Plan! The British Museum is immense, and even a cursory stroll through the galleries takes a day. Consequently, decide beforehand what you absolutely must see – perhaps choosing its highlights or deciding to focus on a particular collection. Remember that it's not so much one museum as many all organized according to the same principles of completeness and curation by specialist scholars. Be sure to pick up a free map and note that while the "classical tour" is expensive, the volunteer-run Eye-opener Tours covering individual sections of the museum are free.

Visit the most popular sections on a weekday afternoon or weekend morning: School groups tend to visit during the morning on weekdays, while weekend afternoons tend to be busier than the mornings and most people head for the highlights – the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern collections are the most popular. In general, the large tours avoid the side galleries, so if you're stuck in a crowd, these rooms (which tend to also have the more informative labeling) are the best respites within these collections. The new Sainsbury Africa Galleries and Asian Collections are only slightly less impressive (and heavily visited.)

At peak times, head for less famous collections: Although they can't match Mediterranean treasures, such as the Elgin Marbles and Rosetta Stone (nothing can really!), the museum's little-visited Islamic collection is one of the best of their kind in the west, and its soaring displays of Native American life quite interestingly fuse modern and pre-Columbian artifacts. The museum's most underrated permanent exhibition is the new Enlightenment Gallery housed in the King's Library, which provides a sense of the intellectual undercurrents behind the museum's creation (its collections also spawned what are now the British Library and Natural History Museum) and how it originally looked.

Don't forget to appreciate where you are. Without its collections, the British Museum's buildings, in the historic intellectual quarter of Bloomsbury, would be intriguing in their own right as paragons of 19th-century architecture. The present quadrangular outer building, designed by Sir Robert Smirke, was completed in 1852 and has been significantly expanded since. The round Reading Room in its central courtyard, by his brother Sidney, was completed in 1857. After the British Library was established in 1998, the courtyard was covered over by Lord Norman Foster to form Europe's largest public square. It's perhaps the most attractive juxtaposition of historical and contemporary architecture in a city full of such combinations.

http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

As would be expected, the place is huge and crowded, and one could easily spend weeks there without seeing everything. Tom took us directly to the highlights, and his commentary was insightful and informative, adding immensely to the experience.

After seeing the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles, the Assyrian friezes, and a wealth of other artifacts, we were left on our own to explore further the things we found most interesting. My friend and I had tea in the snack area in the Great Hall, which was very tasty and reasonably priced. The gift shop is wonderful, with great gift items for everyone on your list, including yourself.

Since we visited during the school year, there were few tourists, but many groups of uniformed school children. Our guide informed us that the children are given free rein so they may develop enthusiasm for art and learning. They were pretty rowdy at times, but it was really great to see their energy and excitement.

Admission to the museum is free, although donations are requested. A tour is a great way to become oriented and then go back to explore the museum's treasures in more depth. Since the museum covers over 13 acres, an orientation tour can save you from wasting your valuable time roaming around aimlessly.

I do not have enough space to describe the history and significant nature of some of the pieces, but I will mention that the Lindow Bog Man, Rosetta Stone, and part of the Sphinx's beard are all on display here. If you like history and love artistic pieces from all over the world, this is a place to spend a couple of days. Since the museum is free, it is well worth the time.

It is located a huge, luminous building in Bloomsbury. It may take a few days to see it all. But the museum management makes life easy for the visitor by closing some of the halls when they do not feel like exhibiting that day, with the excuse that they do not have enough personnel. That’s surprising, because none of the souvenir shops or countless restaurants are closed during museum hours due to lack of personnel.

The museum does not follow a chronological order, or any order at all. For example, you can see Greek statues on main floor, first floor, and lower floor. It is like this all over the museum. I found this very inconvenient and incorrect.

You can see the collection on the Internet before you leave, and once you are there, you know where to visit. For making your own guided tours, see www. Britishmuseum.ac.uk