Asian Civilisations Museum

The Asian Civilisations Museum occupies the Empress Place Building, a colonial-era government complex at the mouth of the Singapore River, and it is the country's main museum of Asian art and culture. Rather than dividing the continent into countries, it explores how trade and faith connected cultures across Asia, which suits a city that grew rich as a trading port at the crossroads of those routes.

The galleries are arranged around three themes: maritime trade, faith and belief, and materials and design. The trade galleries are the place to start. The museum's best-known collection is the cargo of the Tang Shipwreck, a 9th-century trading vessel found in 1998 off Belitung Island in Indonesia, whose load of Tang dynasty ceramics, gold and silver shows how far goods were travelling more than a thousand years ago. Other galleries cover Singapore archaeology, court life, ancestors and rituals, Christian and Islamic art, scholars, ceramics and jewellery.

The museum is open daily from 10am to 7pm and until 9pm on Fridays, with admission to the galleries ending 30 minutes before closing. Friday evenings are often quieter and make a good choice if you prefer to look at objects without crowds. Tickets can be booked online, and the visitor services team can be reached by phone or email with questions. Allow two to three hours if you want to see the main collections without rushing.

It is a comfortable museum to visit. All galleries can be reached by lift with a wheelchair or stroller, wheelchairs and foldable stools can be borrowed free at the visitor services counter, and there are lockers and a phone-charging station behind the lobby. Service animals are welcome, and the museum asks visitors to contact it two working days ahead. Families will find a family-friendly washroom in the basement, and there are restaurants and a museum shop on site.

Raffles Place MRT station is about five minutes' walk from Exit H, and the Fullerton Square bus stop is two minutes away. Drivers can only drop off via Old Parliament Lane, as Anderson Bridge and Connaught Drive are closed. The setting makes it easy to combine with a walk along Boat Quay, the Merlion and the Fullerton Hotel, or with National Gallery Singapore, a short walk across the Civic District.