What is the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
It's the largest art museum in the USA. The present building, which is located in Central Park off 5th Avenue, opened in 1880.
What's the Metropolitan Museum of Art like?
It wasn't what I was expecting. It's definitely more of a museum than an art gallery. It has a lot of incredible paintings from Monets to Picassos to Caravaggios to Washington Crossing the Delaware but a lot of the galleries are devoted to Egyptian sculptures and artefacts (the Temple of Dendur was rebuilt in the Sackler Wing in 1978 when the Egyptian government gifted it to the US to save it from the Aswan Dam).
Where is the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
New York, USA
When did we go?
April 2019
How did we get there?
I went to New York with my sister for a few days - we also visited the National September 11 Museum & Memorial (316), the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (387), and we saw the Empire State Building (200).
Worth noting
The entrance tickets to the Met are expensive ($25) but they last for 3 days so you can go back a few times. This is very useful as there's way too much to do in one visit, as is the case for any enormous gallery or museum. The key is probably in planning ahead and identifying a few things you really want to see and then allowing yourself to be surprised as you wander around. I recommend trying to find the Met's lovely little mascot - a small Egyptian statue of a hippopotamus called William. You can see him in gallery 111.
Where was the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 2015 edition of the Lonely Planet Ultimate Travel List?
80
Does the Metropolitan Museum of Art deserve its place in the 2020 Lonely Planet Top 500?
I called this one right - it probably does deserve to be on the list but the 295th spot is nearer the mark than its previous position.
