Metropolitan Museum of Art

Address 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the Upper East Side facing Central Park, is the best general art museum in the United States and among the half-dozen best in the world. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art history from every culture and continent — Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman sculpture, Islamic arts, European paintings from the medieval period through the 20th century, American art, arms and armour, musical instruments. The scale is genuinely overwhelming.

The suggested admission is pay-what-you-wish for New York residents; visitors pay full price (around $30). Plan at least half a day — most people need a full day. The roof garden (open April–October) has Henry Moore sculptures and views over Central Park. The museum is closed Tuesdays. Book in advance in summer. Don't miss the American Wing's period rooms, the Egyptian Temple of Dendur in its glass enclosure, and whatever is showing in the special exhibitions — the Met's temporary shows are consistently among the most ambitious anywhere.

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A story
The Met is the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most visited museums in the world. It holds over two million objects, of which a small fraction are on display at any time. The Egyptian collection alone — including a genuine relocated temple, the Temple of Dendur, shipped from Egypt in 1965 before the Aswan Dam flooded its site — would constitute one of the world's great museums on its own. The Met Cloisters, a separate branch in northern Manhattan, holds the medieval European collection in a building assembled from actual pieces of French medieval monasteries.