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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Among world's best

Yes, I am talking about the Museum of Wellington, City and Sea


This is the museum I take overseas visitors to -- and they invariably love it.  Small on the outside, it is large on the inside, replete with experiences from Wellington's past -- much of it Wellington's seafaring past.

In the Dominion Post today, it is announced that the Museum has been listed with the top fifty museums in the world, a list that includes the Smithsonian.

Britain's The Times commissioned a panel of ''inveterate'' museum-goers to come up with the a list of the world's 50 best museums.

The list largely favours European and United States museums with just a handful from the Southern Hemisphere.

No other New Zealand museum made the list and only the Australian Museum in Sydney got a mention in Australia.

AND, among the big names, at number 41, is the small Museum of Wellington City & Sea on Queens Wharf.

The Times says Wellington has a tiny population but a great heritage ''as this museum proves''.
   
"Set on three floors, it takes in social and cultural history from early Maori and European settlement through to its maritime past, including a memorial to the 1968 Wahine ferry disaster.''

The Times recommended seeing A Millennium Ago, a show about Maori creation legends.

Museum director Brett Mason said it was an honour to be included on the list.

''Being named alongside museum heavyweights like the Smithsonian Institution, British Museum and Acropolis Museum reaffirms the work we are doing as Wellington's museum," he said.

I have to admit I love the Australian museum in Sydney, too.

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