PARIS - To be honest, I’m not really a museum fan. I’m an outdoors kind of guy so the museums have to be pretty special to draw me indoors, especially on a sunny vacation day.

However, there have been a few museums over my 20 years of travelling the world that have impressed. But, when it comes to my favourite museums, size does matter - the smaller the better.

You’d be surprised how much history can be crammed into small spaces, as I found out in Vienna, Paris, Amsterdam, Florence and London. I have to admit, though, collections in the mega museums like the Louvre did leave me awestruck but also tired and confused.

I’ve narrowed my list of favoruites down to these 10 - some may be unfamiliar but they certainly made an impression on me:

1- Musee d’Orsay, Paris

A friend recommended I visit this storehouse of art history when I first ventured to Paris many years ago - and I’ve made a point of stopping by this loveliest of French museums on every visit to the capital since. Housed in a former railway station - Gare d’Orsay, itself a piece of art - the compact museum holds French art dating from 1848 to 1915. The works of my favourite impressionist painters hang there - Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne ... surrounded by great sculptures, furniture and photography. Amazing stuff. My favorurite paintings at the Musee d’Orsay were the Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, Montmartre - 1876, Auguste Renoir; Poppies near Argenteuil - 1873, Claude Monet; The Dancing Lesson - 1874, Edgar Degas; The Fifer - 1866, Édouard Manet; and The Circus - 1891, Georges Seurat. The works of major sculptors like François Rude, Jules Cavelier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Auguste Rodin, Paul Gauguin, Camille Claudel and Honoré Daumier and also displayed at d’Orsay. The Musee d’Orsay officially opened in 1986 and now attracts about 2.5 million visitors a year. http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html

2- Schatzkammer (Treasury Museum), Vienna

I came upon some ancient wooden doors just off the main courtyard in the Hofburg Palace, pushed them open and entered a treasure chest of gold, jewels and priceless historical items housed in what’s known as the Treasury Museum. The simple, little museum, which holds historical objects dating back 1,000 years, was one of my biggest thrills in Vienna. Inside, I found crowns and relics of the Holy Roman and Austrian empires, including The Holy Lance, reputedly the lance that pierced Jesus’ side; the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, a sacred symbol of sovereignty once moved on Hitler’s orders; the Saber of Charlemagne; the Order of the Golden Fleece; the private collections of the Habsburgs; Austria’s crown jewels; and a golden cradle made for one of Napoleon’s children. I can’t wait to get back to Vienna for the schnitzels and this museum. http:// www.visitingvienna.com/sights/museums/schatzkammer/

3- Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

This museum, devoted to the greatest of all impressionist artists, Vincent van Gogh is a place that still haunts me years after my visit. Coming face-to-face with the self portraits of the mad genius, whose eyes burn through you as you admire the deep strokes he used in his amazing works was one of the most moving experiences of my many travels. As you would expect, the museum contains the largest collection of van Gogh’s paintings in the world and allows you to trace the artist’s development from the beginning of his brilliant career in the 19th century until he descended into madness - cutting off his ear as proof - and eventually dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. But his works still live in this remarkable little museum. http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl

4- Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence

This magnificent museum is where my favourite sculpture in the entire world is on display, and no, it’s not Michelangelo’s David, which sits at the back of this property. No, the Rape of the Sabine Women, a Giambologna masterpiece featuring three figures chiselled out of a single piece of marble - the first of its kind ever attempted - ranks among the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Oh, and there’s plenty of Michelangelo’s works as well, the most sought after being the naked David, which was brought here from the nearby Piazza della Signoria in 1873 and has kept tourists and art lovers spellbound ever since. The Accademia di Belle Arti was actually built to house Michelangelo’s precious works and some of his most famous now share space with an outstanding collection of 15th and 16th century Florentine paintings by Paolo Uccello, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Sandro Botticelli and Andrea del Sarto. Michelangelo is in great company. http://www.visitflorence.com/florence-museums/accademia-gallery.html

5- Musee du Louvre, Paris

You probably wondered what was taking me so long to rate this monster museum among my Top 10. Well, mainly because it’s a monster. I was dizzy after just a few hours exploring the gigantic Louvre - a Mona Lisa here; Dutch Masters there; Egyptian mummies everywhere! There’s just too much to take in during one visit. So, at my French friend’s suggestion, on my last visit I narrowed down things to see that were of interest to me. That’s how I ended up standing among the rich red velvet furniture that highlights the Napoleon apartments contained within the Richelieu Wing of the famous French museum - as masterpiece of design in its own right. Napoleon III decorated his “modest” surroundings with only the best chandeliers, furniture and wall coverings that a peasants’ tax money could buy. Damn the expense! The apartment - itself a grand chateau - is filled with lots of gold and priceless works of art and truly is an amazing place to visit. Napoleon wouldn’t have it any other way, of course. One is always left to wonder after visiting these French monuments to excess why it took the populace back in those days so long to revolt. http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en

6- Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum, London

Not every museum has to be filled with golden statues or priceless paintings to impress me. Some are simply filled with memories, like the abovementioned Cabinet War Rooms, where Britain’s wartime leader and inspiration, Sir Winston Churchill and his cabinet along with their closest military advisors hunkered deep beneath a government building while the Nazis blitzed London from the air. The Cabinet War Rooms were recently expanded to house lots of Churchill memorabilia discovered at the site, including the door that hung at No. 10 Downing Street - the official residence of the British PM - during Churchill’s era. The day World War II ended, the War Room occupants simply packed their things and left, leaving everything intact to be discovered years later. So what you see in the War Rooms is exactly the conditions the British PM and his staff endured during that horrific period. The cramped cubicles that doubled as bedrooms, board rooms, kitchens and communications rooms for Churchill, his family and staff, along with the furniture, are all original. A visit to the War Rooms with my son was one of the highlights during one of our visits to London. http://cwr.iwm.org.uk/

7- National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

When Chiang Kai-shek was forced out of mainland China by Mao’s communists, he took much of the country’s treasured artefacts with him. The Chinese have been trying to get them back from the Taiwanese ever since without much luck. And one visit to this massive museum in Taipei where most of China’s history is now stored, tells you why the Taiwanese are reluctant to surrender the objects. The palace-like National Museum has become the country’s biggest tourist attraction - especially with mainland Chinese, who are now free to travel to Taiwan. The museum opened in 1965 and displays 60,000 treasures on a rotating basis each year. Its collection consists of 655,707 treasures, which once were displayed in Beijing’s Forbidden City Museum. That means it would take you 12 consecutive years to see the entire collection. Delicate jade carvings, wonderful calligraphy, amazing bronze pieces, rare books, historical documents and pottery from every Chinese Dynasty make up the collection, one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen. http://www.npm.gov.tw/en/home.htm

8- The British Museum, London

The sad part about the British Museum is that very little in it is British. Its collection, numbering more than seven million objects, comes from various parts of the world Britain once conquered or occupied - Egypt, Greece, Italy, Middle Eastern countries, Asia, among them. For decades, those countries, especially Greece and Egypt, have been trying to get their antiquities back but the British are reluctant to surrender the treasures. Obviously, the British want to hold on to these priceless pieces of history forever. The museum’s Egyptian collection is the best outside Egypt and features almost 60,000 objects that were either bought or excavated by British archaeologists. Among the treasures are the Rosetta Stone (196 BC), the Colossal bust of Ramesses II, the "Younger Memnon" (1250 BC), Fragment of the beard of the Great Sphinx (1300 BC) and the mummy of Ginger which dates to about 3300 BC, to name just a few. The museum’s great Greek collection is just as impressive and includes the Parthenon Marbles, one of the finest manifestations of human creation. That’s just the tip of the iceberg at the British Museum, whose stately exterior and marble interior is well worth a look as well. And you can’t dispute the admission price - it’s free! The ancient world under one roof - that’s the British Museum. http://www.britishmuseum.org/

9- Terracotta Army Museum, Xian, China

I was awestruck when I first walked into this ancient museum where China’s clay soldiers still stand at attention, thousands of years after they were made to protect Qin Shi Huang, the country’s first emperor, in death. The warriors date back to 210BC and were discovered by a local farmer in 1974. The old farmer now sits near the exit of the museum signing autographs for a fee - totally understandable since he got a mere $50 from the government for his priceless find. The figures include strong warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there are over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits. One interesting note I discovered at the museum is that after the emperor died, the army of workers who created the Terracotta Warriors never got paid, so they returned to the pits and smashed every one of the figures. A team of Chinese archaeologists now every working hour is piecing the great collection back together. The museum site is vast and Xian, where the Silk Road started, is a living museum itself with the only intact city wall in all of China. This is one of the best places I’ve ever visited. http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/.../xian/terra_cotta_army/

10- Vatican Museums, Rome

You don’t have to be a member of the Roman Catholic faith to appreciate this marvellous collection of history. The Vatican’s most precious treasures are safely locked away in vaults below St. Peter’s Square but the 22 separate collections, containing thousands of historical items the public are permitted to view is pretty impressive. The collections range from Egyptian and Etruscan art to maps and modern religious art. The pinnacles, of course, are the Sistine Chapel and Raphael’s rooms. In St. Peter’s Basilica, there’s the Piéta, as well as Bernini’s spiral columns over the great altar and Michelangelo’s massive dome to admire. The Pinacoteca (picture gallery) is filled with great works of tapestries, ceramics and religious art. There are nine rooms of the museums devoted to Egyptian artefacts alone. And the Greek and Roman galleries have to be seen to be believed. The long lines you must endure to seek access to the great basilica and the Sistine Chapel are well worth it. But, learn from my mistake; people wearing shorts or sleeveless shirts will not be permitted entry, no matter how hot a day it is. http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html