Reid & Robie

How does one measure the success of a museum?

– J. Paul Getty

Robie and I are always inspired by the amazing places we visit on our travels. For decades we’ve explored the museums that make a place unique – historic sites in Japan, art galleries in Europe and archaeological wonders in Egypt. But what makes a museum stand out? One that moves us.

Nothing is more mundane than beautiful works surrounded by poor lighting and inadequate details. A museum should combine captivating exhibits artfully portrayed with compelling storytelling. Yet if there’s one thing we’d change about the traditional museum experience it would be to rethink the conventional format to showcase works with elements that stimulate all the senses.

Think classical music playing softly in the background as you wander the hallways of the Louvre or an electric light show illuminating the Great Pyramid at Giza to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Imagine inhaling the scent of fresh-baled wheat while studying Monet’s Haystacks or feeling the cool morning breeze and hearing roosters crow as you ponder his Rouen at Dawn.

Until the day when museums are multi-sensory, we’ll have to make do with what they look and feel like today. For this Top 10 list of international museums, Robie and I had a few ground rules.

1. The place had to be categorized as a museum. While that could include anything from art to history, we didn’t consider ruins, palaces or historic structures. Each of them constitutes their own category and a different Top 10 list.
2. One of us must have visited the museum, so any place we haven’t seen like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg wasn’t allowed.
3. For this list we focused only on places outside the United States.

Honorable Mentions

Because we don’t always see eye to eye, Robie and I have a short list of honorable mentions with an explanation as to why these gems were relegated.

Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy

This was tough since I think David is one of the most beautiful statues ever carved and I love the well-lit atrium he calls home. Plus, I adore anything by Michelangelo, even the unfinished Slaves trying to escape their marble prisons in the hall leading up to David. But since those few blocks and David are all there is in the Accademia, this small collection got bumped from the list.

The Vatican Museum, Vatican City

The problem with the Vatican Museum isn’t that there are too few pieces, but too many. Huge hallways, apartments, gardens and atria filled with tapestries, paintings, frescoes, maps and busts that are simply too much to take in during a single visit. Plus, the one-way direction makes us feel like rats in a maze.

Sometime in the future when multi-day passes allow us to explore the Vatican at our leisure, we’ll reconsider. Until then, this vast collection doesn’t make the cut.

National Archeological Museum in Athens, Greece

There’s an unbelievable hoard of antiquity buried at the National Archeological Museum in Athen. With so much to catalogue, it’s no wonder few of the pieces have adequate signage. With a little love and a lot of time, this museum could be a world-class treasure trove.  

The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt

When Robie and I visited, this museum housed the treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb. Since then, those artifacts have been moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum. Plus, the antiquities museum has the same problems as the National Archeological Museum in Athens. Too many riches and not enough labels. After you’ve seen 20 mummies and 50 sarcophagi, they all start to look alike.

Sukiennice Gallery of Polish Painting in Krakow, Poland

This little-known gem on the top floor of the Cloth Hall in Krakow’s Market Square might make a yet-to-be-formed “Small Museums of the World” list. For now, we’ll include it as an honorable mention for its classic 18^th century portraits and impressive battle scenes from Poland’s long and underrated history.

The Louvre, Paris, France

With 380,000 pieces of art, the Louvre is the largest art gallery in the world with a little of everything: fantastic sculptures, paintings, and Louis XIV furniture. Plus, the art is housed in a majestic building originally constructed as a fortress and later turned into a royal palace. So even without I.M. Pei’s iconic glass pyramid, the Louvre sets the stage outside for what’s inside.

Sadly though, it’s also overcrowded and understaffed. Then there’s most overhyped painting in the world, da Vinci’s tiny Mona Lisa, more famous for having been stolen by a janitor than its artistic qualities. So if you go, skip the crowds and check out the powerful Winged Victory of Samothrace, graceful Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss and majestic The Coronation of Napoleon. Or maybe go on a mission to locate the five other works by Leonardo housed in the Louvre.

And now, Reid & Robie’s Top 10 International Museums

10. Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden

When the 64-gun, wooden warship Vasa was commissioned in 1628, it proclaimed Sweden’s mastery of the seas. On her maiden voyage, the vessel’s top-heavy design caused it to sink 300 yards from shore. Then for three centuries the beautiful boat sat underwater where cold, dark waters of the Baltic helped preserve it.

In 1961, the ship was recovered intact. In addition to the vessel, exhibits explain the unique construction, life of sailors onboard, why the Vasa sank and the massive operation that brought it back from watery depths. Blending history, culture, and maritime exploration, this museum offers a compelling look at human hubris.

9. The Wall Museum, Berlin, Germany

On the morning of August 13, 1961, Ida Siekmann noticed something odd outside her Berlin apartment window. Where the previous day there had been a busy roadway, suddenly a barbed wire fence had been erected, cutting the city in two. Ida’s building sat on the border making it impossible to cross the street and visit her sister a few blocks away.

For a week, Ida sat in her apartment watching unfamiliar faces enter the building only to climb out ground-floor windows around back. When soldiers began bricking up windows on the floors below, Ida knew she had to act quickly or become entombed on the wrong side of Berlin. On August 22, the day before her 59^th birthday, Ida threw a few possessions out her fourth-floor window then jumped. Dying of injuries sustained in the fall, Ida became the first casualty of the Berlin Wall.

The small Berlin museum, located near the former U.S. military entry at Checkpoint Charlie, details tragic stories like Ida’s alongside triumphs of desperate East Germans making their escape. Exhibits include archival photographs and a collection of art inspired by a wall that once divided a city.

8. Warsaw Uprising Museum, Warsaw, Poland

Bruised and battered after five years under Nazi rule, in the summer of 1944 the people of Warsaw, outnumbered and outgunned, orchestrated the largest resistance to German occupation in teh Second World War.

Fearing the Soviet troops advancing from the East, Poland’s Home Army tried desperately to liberate the city before the Russians overran Warsaw and Stalin installed a puppet regime. But what was supposed to be a short operation turned into a prolonged and bloody struggle. As the Soviets remained camped across the Vistula River, the Poles fought in the streets without Allied support.

The German response was brutal. For 63 days airstrikes, shelling and indiscriminate killings ravaged Warsaw, reducing the city to rubble. The Warsaw Uprising Museum highlights this defiant struggle and shows the near-total devastation through a colorized, 3D movie pieced together from archival aerial footage.

7. Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone, Japan

While most museums focus on visual appeal, this outdoor sculpture garden offers a smorgasbord for the senses. It starts with visually stimulating modern art and the smell of clean mountain air accompanied by dramatic music piped in through camouflaged speakers. With terraced lawns, strategic plantings and breathtaking mountain vistas, the Hakone Open-Air Museum offers a dynamic interplay between nature and art that transforms the museum experience.

6. Rodin Museum, Paris, France

Dedicated to the master of modern sculpture, this museum is set in the former home of Auguste Rodin. Like the Hakone Open-Air Museum, the curators make use of the lovely setting. Works are displayed along dirt paths and under a canopy of trees where visitors can ponder The Thinker and take in The Gates of Hell surrounded by budding rosebuds. Plus, since the landscape changes with the seasons, it offers a different ambiance throughout the year.

5. Edo-Tokyo Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Recently Reid reread James Clavell’s sweeping saga Shogun, a tale of court intrigue set in 17^th century Japan, and reminder of the things we both loved from our visit to the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Isolated and mysterious, Japan was an enigma to the Western World before Commodore Perry’s historic opening. Just as Clavell describes the elegant clothing, elaborate tea ceremonies, stoic warrior class, strict caste hierarchy and dramatic landscape of Japan, the Edo-Tokyo Museum showcases them in an engaging, entertaining manner. After crossing a full-scale replica of the Nihonbashi bridge, visitors discover incredibly detailed dioramas featuring historic street scenes and lively festivals designed to show how different social classes lived.

4. The National Gallery, London, UK

Before 2026, we had no clue of the treasures housed in The National Gallery of London. Had we known, it’s where you would have found us every time we passed through the city.

This deep and comprehensive collection of over 2,400 Western European paintings spans roughly 700 years beginning in the mid-13th century. Considered one of the most representative samples of European paintings, the galleries are designed to tell the story of art history with masterpieces like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks and Monet’s Grainstack.

3. Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

At the height of Spain’s colonial empire, the country’s rulers spent lavishly on art. With much of it now housed in the Prado, what makes this museum unique is the thoughtfully curated collection by three dedicated art lovers, kings Carlos I, Felipe II and Felipe III.

Along with a treasure trove of works by Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rafael and Caravaggio, the collection includes iconic Spanish paintings like Velázquez’s Las Meninas and Goya’s La Maja Desnuda. It’s why the museum tops our list every time we visit Madrid. While many of Europe’s leading museums have several works that rank among the world’s best, the Prado has one around every corner.

2. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, Mexico

With 600,000 objects, this museum could feel overwhelming. Instead, the thoughtful layout and abundant signage make it the most comprehensive collection of Mexico’s pre-Colombian heritage found anywhere. Some highlights include the dramatic Aztec Sun Stone, pockmarked Olmec heads, elaborate replica of Maya king Pakal’s tomb and an exquisite recreation of Moctezuma’s feathered headdress.

While the ruins of Chichen Itza, Tulum and Monte Alban get most of the attention, they’re spread out and difficult to visit. Plus, after being stripped of artifacts by tomb raiders and conquistadors, these sites no longer provide a picture of life in pre-Colombian Mexico. Instead, the place to experience the fascinating civilizations that once thrived in the New World is in the National Museum of Anthropology.

It also doesn’t hurt that the museum has a wonderful little café serving the best queso fundido in cdMX.

1. Yad Vashem Museum, Jerusalem, Israel

Built to commemorate Hitler’s 6 million victims of the Final Solution, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center is both a memorial and a museum. The 45-acre campus focuses on the lives and historical narratives of those who were lost to ensure the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten.

The circular Hall of Names relates the biographical data of victims to remember them while the 2.5-acre Valley of Communities engraves the placenames of 5,000 Jewish communities lost during the war. In the Monument of the Children, a powerful emotional design immerses visitors in darkness as the names of 1.5 million murdered children are recited. In one corner, a single flame is reflected through mirrors symbolizing the countless generations lost along with them.

That’s our list of top 10 international museums. Now we’d love to hear from you. Tell us the museums you can’t stop thinking about, the ones that you want to return to again and again.

Who knows? Maybe we’ll add it to our next list!