"Have You Been to the British Museum?" Topic

guess you need to have been to the U.K. for this poll to have meaning…

I was there with the family last summer. An absolutely amazing place. I wish I'd had more time to explore it.

Great place. Was disappointed in the viking section but the treasures from the Med. made up for it.

A whole block, many stories deep, of stuff that the British have plundered from around the world

The reason the sun never set on the British Empire was that even God didn't trust an Englishman in the dark

Seriously, a great place – well worth more than one visit

Have never been to the UK, much less one museum there.

Not only been there many times but joined as a member: it gets me into special exhibitions for free and when I like, gets me a discount on stuff in the shops and cafes and lets me into the members rooms (peace). Excellent place but always rather busy.

Scorpio, if you ever get the chance, don't miss it. It is the one thing I do every time I get to the UK. I might skip Foyle's since the remodel, but never the British Museum. There is always something you didn't see before and worth the trip. NEVER skip the bookshop.

Of course, as a TMP member, you are legally obliged to visit either the National Army Museum or the Imperial War Museum, depending on period.

Well thank God the British DID plunder all that stuff! When I was there looking at all those treasures I was thinking about what might have happened to them if they'd been left where they'd been, at the mercy of the Taliban or ISIS or the next batch of lunatics the region throws up. Anyone from those regions who complains should be told: 'We're just keeping them safe until you are grown-up enough to appreciate them.'

@ Scorpio and anyone else who has not been lucky enough, please get there before they ruin it with a "remodelling exercise" as they have done with the Imperial War Museum, and may be doing with the National Army Museum, which closed on 30 April 2014 and will reopen "spring 2017", meaning it was shut for the 200th aniv of Waterloo and the 100th of the Somme. Genius!

However, it could have been worse, apparently the clown who was put in charge of the IWM wanted to re-brand the museum, as well as packing all the interesting stuff away, so the title did not refer to "war"…

Get yourselves to the Wallace collection too, up by Madamme tussards, " a national museum in an historic London town house. In 25 galleries are unsurpassed displays of French 18th-century painting, furniture and porcelain with superb Old Master paintings and a world class armoury." (from the site) and it's free too!

Better than paying a small fortune to look at wax models of non-entities.

So which British one are we talking about?

Mithmee
'The British Museum' is the name of a particular museum. What it is called.

x42

We try to time our visits to cover two, overlapping, special exhibitions. There are many gems among the permanent displays. The Chinese gallery has four Buddhist deities and if you find the right spot on the floor you can feel that one of them is examining you as you look at him and he isn't impressed. Got to agree with Scott, and let's just remember that before Lord Elgin lawfully bought the Parthenon marbles the Turks were firing artillery at it.

I'm relieved to note that no TMPers voted "I don't recall".