The National Palace Museum
The National Palace Museum 台灣故宮博物館 is one of the few places that is a genuine must see on your trip to Taiwan. It's possibly even worth making a stop in Taipei if you're going to be outside of the capital just to be sure you get to see the treasures it houses. Some of the pieces in this museum are just that stunning. To make a long history lesson short, the bulk of the collection housed at the palace was brought over from China during the civil war. There was a limit to how much the army could take with them as they bounced around the country, so only those objects deemed truly valuable were brought along. As a result, the Taiwanese half of the museum - the other is in the Forbidden City in Beijing - houses a disproportionately high volume of culturally meaningful art. Thankfully, the curators at the museum have packed the permanent collection with great pieces, and there are which come out of storage in rotation. With all the great pieces of art from China's past ...