At the top of the hill in Burlington, VT overlooking Lake Champlain is the University of Vermont campus, home of The Robert Hull Fleming Museum. If you’re on your own for an afternoon in Burlington, Vermont and you happen to love museums, the Fleming Museum might appeal to you. And at $5 for admission, it’s also one of the best tourist bargains you’ll find in town. It’s really a remarkable collection for a small, rural state like Vermont that doesn’t have tremendous financial resources. That said, be aware before going that it does not compare to large museums in cities like New York, Boston, or London. You will probably only need to spend an hour or two here to see everything. The collections are relatively small, though they contain some really amazing objects and artwork.

The Museum hosts a permanent collection of 20,000 pieces of art spanning cultures from Ancient Egypt, Africa, and Asia to Europe and the Americas. Its American collection naturally includes some prominent Vermont artists, such as Charles Louis Heyde and Francis Colburn (whose paintings I really enjoyed, as I liked the obvious influence of modernism and cubism in them; his “Granite Quarry” is a nice tribute to the quarry culture in Vermont). What is really unexpected is its collection of objects such as a winged figure bas relief from ancient Assyria dated 880 BC and a nice little Egyptian collection, including a late Dynastic mummy and coffin. But the Museum’s best permanent collection, in my opinion, is the James B. Petersen Gallery of Native American Cultures, which showcases more than 2,000 Native American artifacts and artwork from both North and South America, including textiles, arrowheads, baskets, and more. I couldn’t take my eyes off a really unique carved raven baby rattle. The Gallery is a fitting memorial for the important anthropological work of Professor Petersen. Finally, the building’s Marble Court is a work of art itself, made of Italian, French, and Vermont marbles, with huge columns supporting a second-story balcony.

The Museum also has rotating exhibitions throughout the year. Over the past decade, the Fleming has hosted some prominent exhibits, including Picasso: Inside the Image, Andy Warhol: Work and Play, Francisco Goya: Los Caprichos and Rembrandt and the Art of Etching. You have until June 2008 to see the current Michael Light exhibit 100 Suns, a disturbingly beautiful collection of photographs of atomic explosions carried out by the U.S. in Nevada and the Pacific the 1950s and 60s; Actors and Exorcists: Masks of Sri Lanka, a collection of ornate, intricately carved and visually stunning ceremonial masks; and Between Soft Machines and Hard Science: The Interstitial Art of W. David Powell.

This past January, the Fleming introduced “Late to Eight” hours on Wednesdays, allowing visitors until 8pm on Wednesdays to view its collections. See their website for additional hours; they are closed on Mondays.