Museums That Take Us Back In History - Silent Time Machines

There are several famous museums worldwide. Some of the best would be The Louvre in France, The Vatican Museums in Italy, The British Museum in the UK, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. Museums are storehouses of cultures of civilizations of the past. They afford a glimpse into the lives of people who lived thousands of years ago. We are able to recreate history and almost travel back in time to unravel the lives led by the ancestors of the entire human race.

Most museums are well maintained with the respective governments or local bodies taking extra care to preserve the artifacts for the benefit of future generations. Most of the pieces were previously held in the hands of private collectors who had a passion to collect rare artifacts for the sheer joy of possessing a bit of history. Subsequently these connoisseurs realizing the true value of their collection had from a broader prospective and bequeathed a lifetime's painstaking work for the benefit of humanity in general. Thanks to such exalted souls, we have a treasure trove of artifacts preserved for eternity.

The Louvre in France is one such museum that houses rare works of art like Seated Scribe, Jewels of Rameses II, the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo to name a few. A detailed tour of the museum would require time and patience and is sure to leave the visitor overwhelmed. The splendid building that houses the museum used to be a fortress and had a humble beginning in 1793 with just 2,500 paintings to display. Today's impressive collection exceeds 30,000 of the best. Some of the unforgettable would include da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's Slaves. The Vatican Museums in Italy are actually a cluster of mini-museums and would probably take longer to tour, starting from the domed Quattro Cancelli area, it would extend to the faraway Sistine Chapel. There is a maze of galleries housing priceless treasures. Once the tour commences, it needs to be completed at the other end as backtracking would not be possible.

The British Museum in London is considered to be one of the oldest and finest museums in the world. What started as an eccentricity of a royal physician was later bequeathed to humanity as good sense prevailed. There are a plethora of collections from the world over, from countries like Egypt, Greece, Italy, Africa and the mystic and exotic Orient. For the sturdy and willing, there are nine 50-minute eyeOpener tours of individual galleries which are free, as also 20-minute eyeOpener spotlight talks in the afternoon before you could break for lunch. For people who do not care to walk a lot, a multimedia public access system called Compass is available. It takes you through a conducted virtual tour with pauses and specifics available on request.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York would overwhelm anyone by its sheer size. Being on the Itinerary of most globetrotting tourists, it attracts more than five million enthusiasts every year with the numbers increasing. There are over two million individual objects to be viewed. The best way to go about taking a tour would be to pick up a floor plan and head towards the ticket booths and choose whatever you wish to view. A visit to this gargantuan edifice would be an experience by itself.

The Smithsonian Museums, or Institution as it is called, consists of 19 museums and 9 research centers. The Portrait Gallery's collection contains 4,000 exhibits of people from all walks of life. The Presidential portraits are noteworthy. The collection of American Art ranges from colonial to contemporary. Housing over 38,000 unique pieces of art that includes rare sculptures, it is indeed a treat. All the museums have elaborate reliable security systems in place like ADT Security Systems for protecting the rarest of rare artifacts, which is very important any country in the world.