Museum Hopper

Over Labor Day, I headed to Lima, Peru to visit my sister, her husband, my nephew and my niece.  My niece and nephew had the day off school, so we headed south of the city to check out Pachacamac .  It was about an hour south of the city although we hit traffic so it usually would be a little shorter.  The site is just off the Pacific Ocean.     The site is named after the "earth god" Pacha Makaq, which is a god we heard a lot about when we were in the Sacred Valley.  It was started before the Incan period, but they continued to operate throughout the Incan empire.  It continued as both a temple and an administrative center.    The ruins were first discovered in the 1890s.   The museum was re-done about three years ago.  Excellently, I might add.   We headed out to the ruins first, but I think you might want to check out the museum first.  I may also feel like that because our tour guide spoke Spanis...

Our last visit in Sintra was to the Quinta da Regaleira.  This was outside of the park system that the Mouros and Pena were a part of.  It is though considered part of the UNESCO heritage site. Parking here proved to be the most challenging aspect of this visit.  There was a small parking lot close to the entrance that was full – otherwise, it was one way streets with very limited street parking.  We had to do a loop twice to end up finding a spot – and had a bit of walk to the entrance (which was fine).  We bought tickets to this when we arrived around 1 pm.  I think we looked to buy tickets in advance, but could not find how to do it.  The gardens were busy, but definitely not over-crowded.  We were able to get tickets right away.  Then into the gardens to try to figure out where to go first.  I do wish they had given more of a path or guided route.  The signage was not great, so it was hard to make sure we hit the high not...

So, I feel like I only have the hardest posts left from our vacation.  Our first stop in Sintra was to Castelo dos Mouros .   We bough tickets in advance.   We ended up driving to Sintra.  We had our luggage with us, so it was definitely more convenient.  We were able to park fairly close to the entrance getting there a little bit before it opened.  We were the first people in there.  It was a good start to the day with a climb.  He let us in a few minutes early and up we went. The fog added a really cool element.  From one end of the towers, you can see the Palace of Pena.   It's orange glow was visible.  You could also barely the Palace of Sintra.  We did not end up going to the Palace of Sintra.  You can see the little white cylinders. The views of they valley were really pretty. You could see all the way to Lisbon. We just would have considered swapping it af...

One of the few tickets we bought in advance for this trip was for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao .  What a beauty.  A piece of art in of itself. Let me start with the outside, which has a number of statues and the building itself.  As we walked up to the building, we were greeted by the terrier of flowers.  It was fairly stunning at five floors high.  When you get up close, how the flowers and colors come together. I saw her sibling in Tokyo in Roppongi Tower Getting into the museum, it was the smoothest entrance we had been in.  They have plenty of workers there handing out the headsets and checking tickets.  We got there as it was opening and headed immediately up to the top.   The Jenny Holzer: Thing Indescrible exhibit was/is hard to forget.  I am not sure how much I would consider it art though.  It was thought provoking and we did spend some serious time thinking about it.  The scale of some of her work was...

After our visit to the Jeronimos Monastery , we walked over to the Belem Tower , a former watch tower and welcoming point to Lisbon from the Atlantic. We waited in line to get in about 30 minutes.  You could get in a shorter line if you had bought the Lisbon card .  From what we could tell, it was not worth it for us.  Unfortunately, that was the only way though to pre-buy tickets to Belem, so we ended up having to wait in line.   This was another monument that also was recommended to visit close to dusk.  I bet the light into the tower is quite pretty coming in from the east side.   We headed in and up to the first level first.  Again, it was so nice to be outside after the flight.  View of the tower from the first floor We really were impressed by the stair system in the tower!  It beeps and has colors indicating if you can go up or down at a certain time.  There is a timer as well.  It is bril...

Our first visit in Lisbon was to the  Jerónimos Monastery .  We had a few missteps on our way there -- it took way longer than it should have!  What a beautiful spot for our first stop (and after a "no sleep" flight there).   We did not end up going to the paid section since the queue was long.   The architecture of the building is beautiful with such intricate details.  The scale of the building is long and substantial.   The inside of the church was beautiful.  Our guide book recommended visiting in mid-afternoon, but unfortunately everything seemed to have that recommendation!   The magnificent ceilings and stained glass were rather stunning.  It was busy inside but we were able to see everything we wanted. What a stunning first stop. Times visited: 1 Time in monastery: 1 hr Overall: A-

I think I need to get started on these blog posts!  I am a bit behind now! Starting a little out fo order, but we really liked the visit to the Terreiro da Se in Porto!  It was the first thing we did in the morning when we woke up our first morning in Porto.  We walked the quick couple of blocks to the Se, cathedral of Porto.   We paid the couple of EUR for the visit into the museum.  The tile in the museum and around the courtyard was beautiful.   We spent a decent time in the church.  You walk in though and it's like WOW! This was one of so many! We headed upstairs too (you can see the railing in the picture above). Courtyard next to the Church A rare photo outside where my eyes aren't totally shut From the Church, we zigged and zagged down to the Duoro river to head over to some Port tastings.  This was one of the best examples of Portuguese tile we saw while in the country (that was really easy to ge...

After lunch, we headed to the American Sign Museum .  I had never been and I had heard good things.  The museum is over on the west side in the industrial area of town.  We have not been over there much.   We used our ArtsWave pass to get a "buy one, get one" tickets.  The museum is rather expensive.  It was $15 per ticket, which is more expensive than the Art Museum and just about as expensive as the Zoo.  It doesn't necessarily have the legacy of either of those institutions. We arrived around 2:30 and caught the last 30 minutes of the tour.  I do recommend trying to catch a tour.  Ironically the museum does not have great signage -- or at least, it has a lot of it.  That being said, it has a lot of individually labeling, but I liked the tour highlighted the key elements of the museum and tied it together.  The tour highlighted the macro trends in signage (who knew such a thing existed).  And given my reaction of "w...

We went to the Newport Aquarium on a Sunday rainy afternoon with my husband, his sister and her almost two year old son!   I had not been in a while and we went about two hours before close.  It was just the right amount of time.   The aquarium is not cheap -- it is worth making sure that you are in the mood and can spend as much time as you need to there.  I think they charge since they are fairly restricted in how many people can be in there.  That being said, it feels like it is always crowded.   We followed the path.  Our nephew loved splashing in the water at the different exhibits where you could touch the animals.  It did remind me of the Finding Dory scene where all the animals hide!  The turtles were great and he loved seeing those.  He kept pointing out all the fish and their colors.  He seemed more engaged at the aquarium than at the zoo.  Perhaps the zoo warmed him up?  Or getting closer to ...

A few weeks ago, I finally went to the Cincinnati Zoo !  It was one of the first nice, non-rainy Saturdays in Cincinnati, so the entire city showed up at the zoo.  My sister-in-law and almost two-year-old nephew were here, so it just seemed like destiny. Unclear if we parked in a zoo lot, but our car was there when we got back, so that's good! We got there about 2.5 hrs before it closed, but there was still a line to get in.   I feel like we did end up covering most of the zoo.  I was a little surprised at how tight the zoo really was.  I guess after the Detroit Zoo with its vast acreage, anything seems small.  Some of the areas though seemed so small for some of the animals.  A number of the animals also did not appear to be out yet...hard to tell if it was still too cold or what it was.  Most of the big cats were not for example.   That being said, we really liked the giraffe exhibit.  We really liked how they put th...