The Chimei Museum

The museum was built by an industrialist who collected for decades and then handed the result to the city, and it has occupied a large neoclassical building in a park south of Tainan since 2015, approached across a bridge and a fountain plaza. The holdings are deliberately broad rather than deep in one field: European painting and sculpture from several centuries, an animal hall of mounted specimens arranged by habitat, fossils, and a musical instrument collection whose stringed instruments include a very large number of historic Italian violins, some of which are lent out to be played rather than kept in cases. The building is unfashionable and entirely unapologetic about it.

What you actually see

• The violin collection - historic Italian instruments, many still lent to musicians.
• The animal hall - mounted specimens grouped by habitat along a long gallery.
• European paintings - several centuries of Western art, hung conventionally.
• The approach - the bridge, fountain and colonnade in front of the building.

When to go

Year-round and entirely indoors, so it works on a wet day or a very hot one. Tickets are timed and sold online, and weekend slots go early in the school holidays. Allow three hours as a minimum, because people routinely underestimate the size. The park outside is open separately and free, and fills with local families in the evening.

Honest expectations

The building is a pastiche of European classicism dropped into southern Taiwan, and some visitors find it hard to take seriously. The collection is broad but not first rank in any single area, and the labelling is thin in places. It is a long way out of central Tainan. Photography rules vary by gallery and are enforced.

Nearby

Tainan's old city is half an hour north and the high-speed rail station is close by.