“After all, isn’t the purpose of the novel, or of a museum, for that matter, to relate our memories with such sincerity as to transform individual happiness into a happiness all can share?”

Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist

 Some of the museums I’ve enjoyed are further afield than the U.S. and far-western Europe. Istanbul, Turkey, where Europe meets Asia, has a wealth of them in the Sultanahmet area. Built 1,500 years ago (532–537), the Aya Sofiya was the church at the center of the Holy Roman Empire. It was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453. In 1934 it became a museum and a Unesco World Heritage site. I visited in 2012. The outside is somewhat squat and plain, but the inside is magnificent with a great dome and many lit chandeliers hanging low to the ground. There are also a number of fairly well-preserved mosaics, massive marble-faced walls, colorful frescoes, and intricately carved decorative work. A second-floor balcony runs around three sides and gives an overview of the main area below. It was turned back into a mosque again in 2020.

Topkapi Palace, once the sumptuous home of the sultans and their harems, and the administrative seat of the Ottoman Empire for almost 400 years, sits on a rise in Istanbul where the Golden Horn meets the Bosphorus River and the Sea of Marmara. It was transformed into a museum in 1924. The palace complex is lovely and consists of four main courtyards, elaborate gates, some enormous structures and many smaller buildings. The Harem quarters, though decorated with exquisite tiled walls. are a prison-like warren. The women enjoyed courtyards and a sea view, but they were confined. (It is said to contain over 400 rooms on several floors, but the public can tour only a fraction of them on one floor.) The treasury has the jewels of the sultans displayed in small glass cases, and I enjoyed the displays of the various sultans' kaftans (mostly from the 16th century). Many of the out-buildings are like separate pavilions for various activities, like libraries, sports, medicine, and even circumcisions. Each has a unique decorated dome. 

 The Goreme Open Air Museum in Turkey’s Cappadocia region is an area of caves and “fairy chimney” rock formations that has been preserved for tourists and has a number of small chapels cut into the rocks with the frescoes still partially intact.

The Island of Symi in Greece, off the coast of Turkey, can be reached by boat from Rhodes. At the tiny port of Panormici on the island’s south side, is a folklore museum and a Byzantine museum in the Panormitis Monastery. At the doorway, It was determined I was "indecently" dressed, along with many of the other women and girls. (I had on almost-knee-length cargo shorts and a t-shirt.) I had to don a complimentary wrap-around skirt in order to enter. Mine had pink and white flowers. (Some men had short shorts, but they weren't bothered.) The Byzantine museum is filled with religious relics. The building also has a Greek orthodox monastery chapel, the reason for the decency requirements because it has a revered icon of Michael the Archangel, patron of the island. Lots of the Greeks were lighting long candle tapers and placing them near the icon. The tourist shop sold religious articles, somewhat like a Vatican shop. I found the folklore museum most interesting since, among other things, it has artifacts from the sponge diving industry the island is known for. 

Budapest, Hungary, divided into two parts with Buda on the northern side of the Danube River and Pest on the southern side, has many museums. Buda Castle on Varnegy (Castle Hill) is the historical palace complex of Hungarian kings. It has several museums and is surrounded by gas-lit cobblestone streets and old row houses. The Pest side has wide boulevards, grand decorated buildings, and many large squares. The Szépművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts) is in a neoclassical building located on the largest one, Hosok Ter (Heroes Square). In addition to Hungarian art, it contains classical and Egyptian antiquities, as well as Old Master paintings.

 Agadir, Morocco has two museums I found interesting. The Musee de Souvenir (Museum of Remembrance) is all about the 1960 earthquake that destroyed much of Agadir and killed 10,000 people. The building was set next to a lovely garden commemorating a treaty between Morocco and Portugal. The Musee Municipal has a nice collection of Berber artifacts—lots of antique silver jewelry like tiaras, diadems, earrings, and bracelets. My friend and I were encouraged by a guard to pose for photos draped in a sparky gold cape. We assumed it was used for a wedding but he said it was for prayer. Very nightclub for a holy outfit! One gallery had an eclectic collection of modern art including some anti-George W. Bush photo collages and a painting of Betty Friedan.

The Museum of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam has some interesting exhibits. One room is dedicated to weddings and has cases with various bridal costumes from both different eras and different areas of the country. (As I was leaving that room, a real bride and groom passed through the hallway with their photographer. They headed for the grand staircase for some picture-taking.) Other exhibits showed dioramas of various industries and handcrafts and also some interesting pieces related to the French and American wars—an old cow cart that was used to smuggle ammunition and a so-called “double boat.” It looks like a long canoe and it has secret compartments under the seats for guns.

 The Genocidal Museum (Tuol Sleng) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is in an old prison that was used by the Pol Pot regime. The photos and implements of torture and claustrophobic holding cells are pretty overwhelming in their horror. One building has the porches on each of the three levels wrapped in barbed wire – to prevent prisoners who broke loose from committing suicide by jumping. It’s reminiscent of Auschwitz. The Nazis ‘final solution’ was to make an Aryan society and the Khmer Rouge’s rampage was to eliminate intellectuals (teachers, lawyers, etc.), who’d be hard to manipulate. Next stop for most prisoners was the “Killing Fields.”

The Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware is located in a two-story white colonial building nestled inside Hong Kong Park in the Central district of Hong Kong Island, China. It’s a branch of the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Built in the 1840s, the house originally served as the office and residence of the Commander of the British Forces in Hong Kong. It was converted to a museum in 1984. Exhibitions tell the history of Chinese tea drinking and feature various kinds of tea ware, from 1027 B.C. to the 20th century. Alongside its exhibitions, the museum holds regular demonstrations, tea gatherings and lecture programs to promote ceramic art and Chinese tea drinking culture.

 The Museo Arqueologico de la Comunidad de Agua Blanca is located in the MachalillaNational Park (located 6 miles north and east of Puerto Lopez) on the Pacific Coast of Ecuador. The small museum of thatched-roof structures was founded in 1979 and contains Pre-Colombian cultural artifacts. such as funeral urns, vessels for ceremonial and domestic use, stone columns, stone U-shaped chairs, shell, metal, bone, and certain minerals such as turquoise. The surrounding excavated ruins are from the Manteño civilization, which thrived in this area from about 800 A.D. until the arrival of the Spanish. During a walk, I saw some owls, a squirrel monkey, and lots of birds, including motmots with bright blue heads and long tails that make a sound. The site surrounds a community of over 200 people who do some farming and make some crafts from shells and tagua. A small sulfurous stream fed by volcanic runoff from the mountains is supposed to be good for your health. It also feeds into a small manmade lagoon and I took a quick dip, since I was wearing my bathing suit. A young guy in the lagoon smeared his face with the sulfurous mud similar to the way people in southern Italy do at Solfatara near Napoli.

Museums can be housed in grand or simple buildings or even out of doors, but they all have learning to impart. I’ve felt enriched by the uniqueness of each one I’ve entered.