The Walters Art Museum Is Free and Full of Surprises

600 North Charles Street. Free, always. The Walters family believed art was too important for admission fees and endowed accordingly. 5,500 years of collection in a palazzo-style Mount Vernon building that belongs in the conversation with the Met and hasn't bothered to argue the point.

The medieval armor gallery stops you. Full suits standing like frozen soldiers — articulated joints, etched decoration, metal gloves that could grip a sword and pick up a coin. Children love the room. Adults are startled by it, because adults know the armor was used. The illuminated manuscripts room holds hand-painted books from medieval monasteries, pages vivid with gold leaf and mineral pigments glowing since the 12th century. The museum provides magnifying glasses. Use them.

The Chamber of Wonders on the fourth floor — a Renaissance Wunderkammer recreation with shells, minerals, scientific instruments, oddities — is the most delightful room in the building and the one fewest people reach because the elevator doesn't announce it. Worth the hunt.