Museum Hopper

when jason and i were in lyon, he had planned for us to visit this art museum, musee des beaux arts de lyon , on the first afternoon after we arrived.  unfortunately, i was exhausted and wanted to take a nap that afternoon.  later that night as we were wandering through the city, we stumbled across the museum.  the museum garden is "open" 24 hours a day.  we were able to wander through the open air garden, which was filled with beautiful statues.  i wish the statues were better lit. we attempted to go back the next day, but they were closed because of the weather?  we think?  i am not quite sure about that!  it was quite disappointing!   that is definitely part of the reason due to the lower score! time in museum: 15 minutes times visited: 1 overall: B

jason found this amazing museum, the gallo-roman museum of lyon .  i had never been to anything like it!   the museum was very interesting to look at it.  it was built into the side of the roman theater with a view onto the theater.  it is a very unfinished space with lots of cement and only two or three large windows.  the natural sunlight was the main light source for the museum.  those windows look onto the beautiful theater seen below!  unfortunately, given the snow, we could not go into the theater.  it did make a spectacular view.   the museum stepped us through the history of romans in lyon from creation to the fall of lyon.   they also tackled such topics as death, clothing and religion.  jason loved seeing the references to bacchaus, the god of wine! the museum had an exhibit on all of the roman references in the movies!  we thought it was pretty funny that most of the movies were american!  they included such classics as ben hur and the ten commandments .  the mov

our last stop in lyon was at the maison des canuts , which basically means the museum of the silk makers.  Canuts were specifically silk makers often working on large looms in lyon.  it is up in croix-rousse , which is now part of lyon proper, but at the time when weaving was at the height of prominence, it was its own city.  it in northern lyon perched on the top of a large hill. we were on a guided tour and learned the history of silk making and how to weave on the large looms.  i finally had the mystery of how different colors appear in weavings solved!  most of the demonstration was in french, but it was easy to follow visually.  without the demonstration, there was very little to see in the museum.  it had a beautiful silk shop at the front with two rooms with old weaving equipment and some photographs/sketches.   the silk weavers were some of the earliest "unions."  they created collective bargaining as well as had a trade newsletter, etc.  it was interesting to see