Last week I talked a bit about my favorite “Big Four” of museums in the world, the British Museum, the Louvre, the Egyptian Museum, and the Vatican Museum. Today I want to revisit some lesser known, but still great museums in Egypt, Paris, Kuwait, London, and Washington, DC. How’s that for a variety of locales?

I suspect that most of you have not had the opportunity to visit Kuwait, so I’ll start with the Tareq Rajab Museum of Islāmic Art in Kuwait.

Tareq was the first Minister of Kuwait. He and his British born wife, Jehan Welborne, amassed one of the largest collections of Persian and Islāmic art in the world, including gold, silver, pearls, armor, early editions of the Koran, and many, many other artifacts. This privately owned museum houses this outstanding collection. An interesting note is that during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the staff hastily packed up and or hid the various artifacts. Part of the museum is underground, in a series of climate controlled rooms. The stairs leading down to these underground rooms were filled in with dirt and covered over with rubbish, leaving the Iraqi Army unaware of the treasures that lay beneath their very feet. After the war was over, the stairs were dug out, and everything was restored to its proper place and display.

While we are looking at the Middle East, I have to also mention the Roman-Grecco Museum in Alexandria, Egypt. You probably know of Alexandria through its two most famous citizens, Alexander the Great, who conquered Egypt and founded it, and the Pharaoh Cleopatra, best known for seducing both Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony! Even today in Alexandria it is not at all uncommon to see people with red hair and blue or green eyes, reminding us of that long ago Macedonian army. While not as grand and huge as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Roman-Grecco Museum has a wonderful collection of well displayed artifacts from the Pharaonic, Roman, and Greek eras in Egyptian history. The gardens have multiple busts of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony. There are also many images of Cleopatra throughout the Museum. Despite her reputation as a femme fatale, she was not thought to have been overly beautiful, but she apparently had quite a way with men!

Close to the Museum there is an old Roman amphitheater and baths. I have to mention this site as we thoroughly enjoyed getting to see it. You can just wander around these ruins on your own. The whole site would be an OSHA nightmare here in the US, no railings or safety measures anywhere!

One of the interesting things for me was noting that all of the seats were numbered (in Roman numerals but of course!) so that everyone knew where his assigned seat was, just like going to the theater today!

Those of you who know me well know that I love the medieval and Elizabethan periods, so my next two selections should not come as a surprise.

In Paris the Musée du Moyen Age, also known as the Musée du Cluny, houses a wonderful collection of medieval art, jewelry, stained glass, and tapestries. The building itself was built in the 15th Century and was originally part of the Abbey du Cluny. A nice side benefit of visiting here is that it is off the beaten path so not nearly as overrun with tourists as the Louvre and some of the other more famous sites! Another favorite of mine from the Middle Ages has to be the Tower of London. As you can probably gather, I am definitely a history and literature buff.

The Tower of London houses the collection of the Royal Jewels as well as the Royal Armoury.

It is not a museum per se but houses other museums within it. When I stood in the spot where Ann Boleyn had been beheaded, I had chills. On a lighter note, when we visited the Royal Armory within the Tower complex, there was a full suit of armor that had belonged to Henry VIII. Now Henry was a large man, both tall and heavy. The suit of armor had what was the Elizabethans politely called a cod piece or else he wanted to, umm, enhance his manhood, so to speak. There were two little boys about 10 or 11 looking at the armor.  They were speaking in a foreign language, an eastern European one I think, and were pointing and giggling.  You didn’t have to speak the language to understand full well what they were saying!

As I look as my “Big Four” and my “Minor Four,” I am sad to say that I really haven’t included any US museums on my list of favorites. We in the US do have the various museums in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and I hope every American gets to see all of these. Over the years I have visited all of them, but I have to say that they don’t excite me quite like some of the others do.  I do think the Air and Space Museum is certainly worth a visit as is the Holocaust Museum. The National Portrait Gallery is most impressive, but I have to admit that art galleries are not my very favorite.  I prefer the more historical types of museums, especially if they have lots of old artifacts and mummies!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2018