Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not the first Egyptian museum I've been to (no, to…read moremy knowledge I am not Egyptian). It is, however, by far the nicest.
"What is an Egyptian museum doing in Munich," I thought, but more specifically, what is Germany doing with this many Egyptian relics? Why is this collection large enough to be housed in a museum here?
Well I'm sure some of you could enlighten me with the history, and probably several of you are rolling your eyes at my ignorance of some ruler and how important the Egyptian culture was to him, specifically, but no matter.
I enjoyed this museum as much, if not more, than I've enjoyed most museums I've visited in my adult life, and that was due in part to the museum building itself--the architecture and the overall design is spectacular. The brutalist structures both highlighted the museum pieces and could stand alone as art by themselves.
Beyond that, the employees were friendly, despite the hanging feeling that Americans-who-only-speak-English are not welcome everywhere we went, and the collection is seriously impressive. Tons and tons of stuff to look at, and all very well preserved.
We spent a decent amount of time walking through here, about 3-4 hours. We took advantage of the free, self-guided, recorded English tour, but also stopped to appreciate most of the items that weren't mentioned, as well.
Didn't have much time to peruse the store or enjoy the cafe, but that's fine. I will say that the foods at American museum cafes are much better than what I've seen outside of the US. Definitely make a stop here but eat elsewhere.