The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met is not a museum so much as a civilisation archive with a Fifth Avenue entrance: two million objects across two million square feet, from a complete Egyptian temple (Dendur, saved from Lake Nasser and rebuilt in its own glass hall) to Washington Crossing the Delaware, samurai armour, Vermeer, a Frank Lloyd Wright living room and the armour of Henry VIII. It is the largest art museum in the Americas and the one institution in New York that genuinely cannot be "done."

So don't try. The Met rewards a plan of three anchors and honest wandering between them. The reliable anchors: the Temple of Dendur at closing light, when the wall of glass turns the sandstone gold; the European paintings galleries for the densest Vermeer-Rembrandt-Caravaggio run outside Europe; and the American Wing's Engelhard Court, a sculpture garden inside a glass atrium that doubles as the museum's best sit-down. Beyond those, follow appetite: the Islamic wing's Damascus Room, the Astor Chinese Garden Court, the arms and armour parade — each would headline a lesser museum.

Practicalities that matter: adult admission is a fixed $30 (New York State residents still pay-what-you-wish with proof), the ticket includes same-week entry to the Met Cloisters — the medieval branch in a Hudson-side monastery uptown, and the best half-day extension in the city — and the rooftop garden bar (seasonal, via the elevator by the modern wing) hides a Central Park panorama most visitors never find.

Go at 10 AM opening or after 3 PM; the 11-to-2 middle belongs to tour groups. Fridays and Saturdays run to 9 PM — the evening Met, half-empty with a bar in the Great Hall balcony, is the version locals keep for themselves.