India's biggest and oldest major museum celebrated its bicentenary in February 2014. It's mostly a loveably old-fashioned place that fills a large colonnaded palace ranged around a central lawn. Extensive exhibits include fabulous sculptures dating back two millennia, notably the lavishly carved 2nd-century-BC Barhut Gateway.
But there's so much more. Gag at the pickled human embryos beneath a dangling whale skeleton. Seek out an ancient Egyptian mummy. Peruse 37 types of opium in the library-like commercial-botany gallery. Notice over 7kg of rings and bangles found in the tummy of a gigantic man-eating crocodile. Woman-eating too, one supposes.
No bags are allowed inside: handbags can be stored at the entrance but don’t arrive with a big backpack.
