Perhaps the foremost of Taiwan´s crown jewels, this huge, traditional-Chinese-style complex built in the 1960s is home to the world´s largest collections of Chinese imperial artifacts – some 700,000 pieces – taken from Peking´s Forbidden City in 1931 to keep it from falling into the hands of the Japanese, then in 1949 to Taipei when the Nationalists fled here after losing to the Communists. Spanning some 8,000 years of history from the Neolithic to modern times, it´s a true bucket-lister for all culture vultures.

Read more in my post Equal Parts Handsome, Historic, and Cutting-edge, Taiwan Is Terrific.

Ali Eminov