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High Culture on a Low Budget: London’s British Museum

The British Museum's Tessellated Ceiling
Tessellating, innit it? © J. Salmoral

In need of an art fix similar to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY while in London? Fortunately, the most expensive city in Europe (and the second most expensive city in the world next to Tokyo) features an array of free and top-notch museums.

The British Museum ”” with seven million-odd pieces ”” can take an entire day if you’re patient or willing. Fortunately, admission is free. Its Greek and Roman collections are quite stunning, as are the Asian and Egyptian rooms. The Great Court, however, is where the fun is really at. The tessellated glass ceiling covers the largest covered square in Europe and housed what was originally the museum’s reading room. Now it has several shops and cafes and is deliberately open later than the rest of the museum, creating a nice indoor piazza atmosphere. This is a great area for Bloomsbury enthusiasts in general; most houses/apartment buildings are from that era and are beautifully preserved.

The British Museum
Great Russell Street, WC1
Underground to Russell Sq/Tottenham Court Road
10:00 am to 5:30 pm Sat-Wed
10:00 am to 8:30 pm Thurs & Fri
www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
73.23.82.99

Olivia Giovetti
Olivia Giovetti has lived in and explored the better part of Europe on a bohemian budget and has written for outlets such as Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, Paper, EuroCheapo, Classic FM, and New York City Opera. She's also the editor and sole staff member of High Culture on a Low Budget. A former New Yorker, she now lives in Los Angeles.

11 Comments

  2. Thanks, Geoff! This is actually one of my archived pieces from last year that we’re moving over to Vagabondish from HighCultureLowBudget.com, but you’re absolutely right. Go to London, everybody!

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  5. A day is even an understatement. Every friend I’ve discussed it with agrees that you could spend the better part of a week at the British Museum without ever exhausting it of its interesting pieces. Great site.

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  6. Agreed with Andrew. Simply getting a handle on this museum takes a couple visits.

    I was also very taken with the Great Court.

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  7. I really hate to be Captain No-Fun, but I’m not sure any discussion of the British Museum is complete without a mention of its continued refusal to return cultural treasures looted by the British from around the world.

    The so-called Elgin Marbles — named for the man who had them hacked off the Parthenon and transported back to England, and incidentally the same man who gave the order to torch the Old Summer Palace in Beijing — are the best example. The Greek government has lodged numerous complaints and requests for their return, and has even constructed a multi-million dollar facility to house them and protect them from the Athens pollution, with no response.

    As a one-time Classics major I’ve always wanted to see them. I’m hoping if I wait long enough, I’ll actually get to see them on the Acropolis, where they belong…

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  9. @Eva: don’t worry about being Captain No-Fun; it is a subject worthy of consideration.

    As to the Elgin Marbles, though, I find the question more grey than that. It is probably no news to you that at the time when Lord Elgin took them to Britain, authorities in the failing Ottoman Empire were not taking care of them well at all, and the marbles had already been damaged, and other items at or near the site had been looted by private persons, never to surface or receive the care that the British Museum provides now. Where are these looted items, the ones that Elgin did not take? Gone.

    As to whether the marbles should be returned now, I understand the desire for caution. I watched a documentary on the Cairo Museum several years ago, in which the workers there attempted to renovate a wooden statue that had been returned to them by the British. While inserting glue into the cracked face of the statue, they dislodged the face completely, effectively destroying the statue before the camera’s eye. I know that this will seem questionable to you, since you have doubtless met and digested such objections before voicing your own views here, but for myself, I would rather see caution than destruction through mishandling, paternalistic though it may seem.

    Should it indeed seem paternalistic, one might reflect that as we speak (though Greek attitudes to their patrimony may be far different from Turkey’s), Turkish dam-building stands ready to inundate and destroy several ancient churches and other important sites. Greece is now no longer part of Turkey, of course, though I should also mention that I find the Turks to be wholly estimable people, among the kindest on earth, though their authorities’ care of their ancient treasures is so inconsistent. It can certainly be argued, as well, that Lord Elgin took what by our modern standards (the standards, indeed, followed by the British Museum now) are appallingly destructive measures in the way he removed the marbles for safe-keeping. However, if these churches in Turkey stand to be destroyed, even in our day, by the authorities, I do not find it convincing to demonize Lord Elgin for “saving” the marbles from the far more careless Ottoman Turkish authorities of 200 years ago.

    A good solution would be a cooperative venture by which British, Greek, and other scientists and archaeologists would work together to ensure that the very highest standard of care which they could conceive should be that followed by the Greek authorities, and that then the marbles should be returned.

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  10. Fair point, Andrew, broadly speaking. It’s always a fine line to walk, between paternalism and cultural preservation. After all, you could argue that the physical manifestations of our cultural heritage don’t just belong to the current nation state that happens to hold them, but to all of us!

    On this specific point, though, I think it’s also fair to say that Greece is neither Turkey nor Egypt. It is no longer an Ottoman province, it’s a modern European nation. And from everything I’ve read, the home they have designed for the Marbles is state of the art.

    The refusal to return the Elgin Marbles seems to have more to do with their status as one of the British Museum’s most popular attractions, than with any legitimate concern for their well-being.

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  11. Thanks Eva, that may well be, too. I do hope that they make their way back to Greece and that they are well-kept there. The British Museum certainly has enough to keep me coming back, with or without them, and it would be a source of national pride for the Greeks. Thanks for your comments! Cheers, Andrew

    Reply

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