Museum of Asian Art (Palace of St Michael and St George)

The Museum of Asian Art occupies the Palace of St Michael and St George on the northern edge of the Spianada in Corfu Old Town, Kerkyra, Greece. The neoclassical palace was built by the British in the 1820s as the residence of the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands and later served as a royal palace for the Greek monarchy. Today it houses the only museum in Greece dedicated entirely to Asian art. The collection was built up from donations by Greek diplomats and collectors, notably Gregorios Manos, and covers China, Japan, India, Korea, Tibet and other regions of Asia. Visitors see porcelain, bronzes, jade, lacquerware, Buddhist sculpture, Japanese prints, armour, textiles and ceremonial objects arranged by region across the palace's elegant rooms. The building itself is part of the attraction: tall Maltese-stone facades, Ionic columns and the Throne Room, along with the grand staircase and the Hall of the Order of St Michael and St George, show how British administrators lived in the Mediterranean. The rooms are modest in size, so the museum is quiet and easy to explore at an unhurried pace. A visit typically takes 1 to 1.5 hours. Weekday mornings are the calmest, while the busiest moments occur when groups from nearby cruise ships arrive in the middle of the day. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday on seasonal hours, normally from the morning until mid-afternoon, and closes on Mondays and some public holidays. The ticket is inexpensive, about €3, and is also included in the €15 multi-site ticket that covers several Corfu museums. The palace garden, with its views of the Old Fortress, is worth a short stop after the galleries, and the Liston is only a three-minute walk away.