The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met is less a museum than a walled city of them — two million square feet along Fifth Avenue holding five thousand years of making, from the Temple of Dendur standing in its glass hall to an entire Ming scholar's courtyard rebuilt stone by stone upstairs. No one has ever seen all of it. The right approach is to stop trying: pick two collections, give them real time, and let the rest wait for another visit.

The building rewards attention as much as the art. The Great Hall's domes, the grand staircase, the American Wing's garden court with its Tiffany glass and bank facade — and in warm months, the roof garden, which pairs a rotating commission with one of the better treeline views of Central Park anywhere.

Go early or go late. The first hour after opening belongs to the Greek and Roman galleries, nearly empty, morning light falling across the marbles; the last hour, when the tour groups have drained away, is when the place feels most like yours.