The standard against which all omnibus museums have been measured ever since it opened in 1753, the British Museum is undoubtedly worth a trip to London in itself. Personally, I don't consider any sojourn to the British capital worthy of the title without poking my head in here – however briefly – and you could happily spend years inside without scratching the surface of its collections. Unfortunately, time is brief, and with 15,000 visitors a day seeking to do the same, it's important to plan your visit (or visits) strategically:

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

Being only a short walk from our hotel, we visited the British Museum. Its advantage is that everything stretches out before leaving you are free to make your own discoveries--instant world travel! Some might view this stripping the earth of its treasures as a tragedy, but often it is the only way to preserve them. The Elgin Marbles would, for instance, have been destroyed by corrosive pollution if left on the Parthenon in Athens

The museum, established in 1753, is the world's greatest collection of antiquities, particularly from Egypt, the Near East, Greece and Rome, and Asia. Among its most famous holdings are the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, and the Portland Vase. The British have gone to the ends of the earth in search of artefacts to document the history and aspirations of the civilizations and cultures of every continent. It all comes together here, from Rome to the Far East, from the Americas to the Pacific Rim. The collection is too vast for anyone to truthfully say they have "done" the museum.

Its creation was spurred by a private donation to the government in the 1730s of over 71,000 exhibits. These combined with another collection already held created an urgent need for a museum. Additions to the collections led to continual remodelling of the building, leading to a mixture of Victorian, French, and Greek Revival architecture styles. The central plaza contained the Reading Room, one of the great centres of European scholarship, where Karl Marx famously wrote Das Kapital. At the turn of the millennium, this Reading Room was given its own museum, The British Library. Then a delicate glass dome was erected over the entire central plaza, creating the Great Court. Its dome arches gracefully over the floor below and converges on the copper roof of the former Reading Room, as if one dome rested on another. It is a spectacular sight and enhances the rest of the building's architecture. It is also a good place to have a cup of coffee and a snack or browse the bookshop.

I spent a considerable time in the first gallery I came to that was devoted to Islam. In truth, it would be possible to spend a day or so studying the beliefs and achievements of each of the many cultures covered. Having only a few hours before catching the connections back to the airport, I realised that a whirlwind tour was called for. Fortunately, photography is allowed, so I have a record of some of the main items together with their captions.

To assist those who know what they are looking for, COMPASS is available in the former Library's Reading Room. It provides a much-needed orientation tool for the surrounding galleries.

The museum hosts lectures, study days, and celebrations of cultures. The latter often includes a host of free activities, performances, and displays, which may include dancers, listening to stories, and music. If I stayed in London, I would attend many of those.

Asking of the British Museum, "What's it like?", is roughly analagous to saying, "Hey, the history of the world, what's it like?" This museum is daunting and you must, MUST, take at least two days to appreciate it. If you try to run through it in a few hours, you're going to get absolutely nothing out of it and just end up exhausted and overwhelmed.

Don't try to narrow it down to highlights, either. You may walk through the main entrance saying "First the Rosetta Stone, then the Elgin Marbles, then...," but I guarantee that you'll see the Easter Island statues in the lobby and stop for those. Then on your way toward the Elgin Marbles, you'll stop and meander through another exhibit, and another. By all means, walk in with a general plan of things you MUST see, but the best idea is just to wander and get overwhelmed by the things you had no idea were there.

That said! The bowling-over starts on the outside. The building itself is impressive enough, especially with the striking half-face statues in front. Now go ahead, walk through the doors,and, WHAM, you're in the Great Court, the largest, covered public square in Europe. Look up at the ceiling - it's striking.

From here, go where you will, but some of my personal favorites:
The Elgin Marbles - these make the highlights lists, sure, but to see them in person is really something. These are bits of the Parthenon, from the frieze. Take some time to examine the detailing - it's breathtaking. And once you're done seeing the Marbles, learn a bit about the controversy surrounding them and their place in the museum instead of Greece, a modern-day colonialist conflict.

The Egyptian Collection - this entire section is engrossing. It doesn't matter if you don't know anything about Egyptian history, because this exhibition will teach you what you need to know. This is the history of one of the most powerful civilizations ever to grace the face of the earth, laid out in a museum wing. Oddly, the Rosetta Stone, for all of its historical significance, doesn't have a whole lot of impact in person - I walked past it three times before I realized what it was, and I was LOOKING for it.

The British Isles, Viking, and Celtic Exhbits - I ended up spending more time in this area the second day than the first. This is Stone- and Bronze-Age history laid right out for you, in artifact after artifact. Especially interesting, I thought, was a large, tiled panel featuring an intricate design (see photo).

All in all, the British Museum makes a "Brief History of Time" under one roof, an experience to remember. Wander through slowly, take your time, and you won't regret it.

Just simply one of the most magnificent museums in the world, containing more than 7 million artifacts, this showcase of the past is now FREE. Hail Britannia! London visitors can now schedule at least two visits to this treasure trove, instead of frustrating themselves attempting to see all its highlights in one. Since most school tours seem to occur mornings, you can visit two afternoons. For our son, the Elgin Marbles captured his attention first, as he had experienced with us the Acropolis on our first European trip. Pressure by the Greeks to have them returned to Athens will continue, especially for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, but, personally, I think the much-maligned Elgin did civilization a great favor in removing them when the Turks were so ignorant about the peerless Acropolis that they used it as a gunpowder site. He even lost money when he sold them to the Museum. The marbles gleam, their artistry strikes the viewer with awe at living representations so vivid as to seem ready to move before you.

When we visited this museum in 1996, I saw one schoolchild touch the Rosetta Stone, which I was astonished to see out in the open surrounded only by ropes that indicated limits kids often don’t see. I shall never forget the gentle tone of the museum guide who told her that she should not touch the stone because it was "very old," and "the only one we have." Now, the Rosetta, the all-important key that led to the understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics, is appropriately encased.

Our son’s description of the now open area that used to be the Reading Room that was available only to scholars like Karl Marx made me long to dash off for a re-visit, but it was our last day in London. This two-acre area, known as The Great Court, now the continent’s largest covered public space, was an expensive (a million and a half pounds) conversion, but adds to the democratic ambiance that this museum exuded to me in 1996.

Since this renovation, the superb collection of manuscripts is now housed separately, in its own controversial building at 96 Euston Road, NW1 (British Library). Removal of their Magna Carta, Shakespeare’s first folio, and other treasures, allowed space for this museum to develop multimedia capabilities that have opened up to Internet users virtual displays of its precious possessions, so you can plan visits. Special exhibitions cost around $8 for adults and about $5.50 for seniors, students, and children under 16. Where else could you see the Portland Vase, the Sutton Hoo hoard, a multitude of mummies, and the Halicarnassus sculptures -- just a few unique artifacts that space limits only allow me to mention? As the Museum is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, special events and exhibits highlight its calendar.

Open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-6pm.
Tube : Holborn, Russell Square, Tottenham Court Road.
Visit their terrific website.

Phone: (020) 7636-1555
Open: Sat-Wed 10 am – 5:30 pm, Th-Fri 10 am – 8:30 pm
Admission is free
Closest underground stations:
Holborn, Tottenham Court Road, Russell Square, Goodge St

The museum looks very modern inside, and very 18-19th century from the outside. What a contrast. You enter through the black iron gates and see the neo-classical façade with heavy columns supporting the portico. And then you come inside the museum and something unexpected happens. Inside there is a very large modern court, well-lit through the glass roof with a staircase in the middle. This is the Great Court that was built for the new millennium in place of the inner courtyard. Courtyard was blocked fom public view by the British Library that was moved to another location about 5 years ago. The Round Reading Room is in the center of the court and the staircase curves around it on both sides leading to the giftshop, bookstore and restaurant at the top of the stairs.

The museum is very large and impressive from the outside and when I approached it I felt like the character in the "Mummy" except that I couldn’t drive in a car right to the doors of the museum. That’s too bad!

If you want to see the largest collection of the most famous mummies from ancient Egypt – this is the place. I haven’t seen so many well-preserved mummies with sarcophaguses painted in bright colors. Seems like several dynasties are right here in front of you so close that if not for the glass you could touch them. The walls of several halls are covered with ancient Egyptian paintings with those famous static figures that haven’t lost the brightness of color either.

You can also see here the famous Rosetta Stone that was discovered in 1799 by Napoleon troops. The stone has the same message written in 3 language, 2 of which are ancient Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics. This is probably the most important discovery in modern archeology. Thanks to this stone, scholars were able to begin deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. British Museum also has a large collection of Roman and Greek statues that came from English expeditions to Italy, Greece and Turkey in the beginning of 19th century.