Museum Hopper

Phew.  Got the biggest post, Machu Picchu , out of the way.  Hopefully the rest of these will be a little more fast and furious!   We went to the Museo Inka after a busy day of sightseeing.  It was right off the square, so we figured we would jump in before it closed.   The building was beautiful.  It was built around an old traditional Spanish courtyard with about three stories.  The museum is wrapped around the museum.  It was nice and cool due to tall ceilings.   The museum was quite comprehensive, but unfortunately did not seem like it had been updated for a number of decades.  It did step you chronologically through the progression of the Incas throughout the entire territory.  Having already visited Machu Picchu and reading Turn Left at Machu Picchu , this museum covered a lot of details that were covered in those two visited. We were not super impressed with this stop, but it was convenient and re-iter...

as we were heading out of town, for jason, we went to the wings over the rockies air and space museum .  we think it was in an old air force hangar.   the museum was in one huge open space with lots of airplanes. my husband liked some of the airplanes, but was a little disappointed at the overall quality of the planes.  he wished there had been some older planes (war birds).  all of the planes were flown in the Vietnam War or more recently.  we did get to see a Burt Rutan plane though!  jason always likes seeing those!  rutan was honored by the museum and that made jason very proud.     behind the planes, there were a variety of small rooms with particular focuses like uniforms of pilots and nose art.  the rooms were a little dated, but the quality of the material was strong.  i had seen a lot of nose art from world war II, and so it was interesting to see some of the more recent art.  it seems that nose art has dwin...

our first stop in san gimignano was the museo civico, which is in the base of the largest tower.  we bought the combined ticket! we went up to the tower first to beat all the other tourists up there!  the view of the town is fantastic.  all the other towers are visible as well as the surrounding countryside.  it was a very unusual stairwell for an old tower as in it was fairly wide and looked as though the stairs had been added in the last 50 years!  i loved seeing the town square from up above.   the museum was at the base of the tower.  the frescos outside the museum are fantastic.  the items within the museum are not very impressive.  the most impressive items within the museum were actually discovered a few years ago as beautiful frescos.  part of the museum was even under construction.   i could not believe that these frescos were outside for so many years.  they are finally covered with plexiglass! t...

jason and i visited the museo archeologico in san gimignano, italy, as part of a combination ticket when we were there on our honeymoon. as part of the tower climb ticket, we decided to spend an extra couple of euros to get access to the other museums in the city.  as i suspected, this part of the museum was not necessarily worth the trek to the other part of town. the museum was comprised of a few different rooms with different archaeological relics.  there were lots of fragments of pottery and relics from the area.  unfortunately, it was just collections of pottery with little explanations in english or stand-out pieces.   we did like these jugs from the representative pharmacy.  i loved them as examples of beautiful tuscan pottery. overall, we could have skipped this museum and been just fine! time in museum: 20 minutes times visited: 1 overall: B-

after the musee rodin and hotel des invalides , i hopped back on the metro to see the pantheon .  it was listed in my guidebook as a "top 10" sight and was covered by the museum pass.  i am not sure i would have gone if it was not covered with the pass.   after seeing it, i definitely would have been upset to pay for it.  i got there around 5:30 since it was open until 6:30, so slightly later than some of the other exhibits and spots.  the employee at the door recommended that i go straight to the crypt since that was closing at 6:00.  i followed his advice and went to down to the crypt.  the crypt does have a number of interesting people buried down there including: - marie curie and her husband, pierre - victor hugo - emile zola - louis braille, the inventor of braille, the language for blind people - rousseau while down in the crypt, they seemed to be filming something, which involved cranky guards hissing commands like "don't go there" and ...

while i was in vancouver, i also headed to the vancouver art gallery ! i went with my boyfriend, who was not super excited about it to begin with. we arrived at the end of the day and were able to use our student IDs to get a discount on entrance. the museum had been mentioned a few different times in the guidebook and i was pretty excited. when we arrived, the building is quite beautiful. we asked for a map of the museum, but they do not have one. Once we started through the museum, we saw that a map was not really necessary. each floor was on a complete exhibit and the top floor is currently closed. the first exhibit started out as interesting...i hoped it would get betteras we went up. it was a good start. it was an exhibition titled we: vancouver . it was a good view of vancouver values and ideals. some of the ideas were unusual and i have seen similar things discussed in detroit like the urban farms and new urban building development. the next exhibit we visited was ken lum ...

i visited the william l. clements library before my last final on thursday.  i had stopped by the library a few times before it was finally open.   before you go, definitely check the hours.  i stopped in.  there were literally 6 of us in the library.  they had two glass tables with the manuscripts about for the sugar in the atlantic world: trade and taste exhibit.  one of the tables had all the books, letters and manuscripts regarding the "trade" aspect of the exhibit.  i thought it was an interesting comparison to the exhibit i visited at the new york historical society regarding the cotton trade covering roughly the same time period.  the other table discussed how sugar started to appear in more recipes in america around that time.  the library had a number of cookbooks, full of sweets, candy, and cakes.   the library also had a set of cases regarding previous controversial books at some point in history.  they h...

i went to the guggenheim museum by myself today. the museum is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. as part of the celebration, they have a large exhibit about frank lloyd wright . the exhibit is titled: frank lloyd wright: from within outward . as everyone is aware, the guggenheim building in new york city was designed by frank lloyd wright in 1959-1960. the building was completed 6 months after he passed away. the building is fantastic. it has finally finished the refurbishment of the museum (late last year, i believe). when walking by now, you can view the actual museum, as opposed to scaffolding. it was pretty interesting to view 64 of his projects in a museum he designed. this was the very first major exhibit about frank lloyd wright i have ever attended. as usual with exhibits at the guggenheim it started at the bottom and worked up to the top of the museum. they had everything from sketches to models and pictures of the projects that were built. i had nev...

i went to el museo del barrio by myself one saturday afternoon. it was an interesting museum. it looks like an old school that you would expect to find in a rougher neighborhood, which was pretty neat. the exhibit was of all the work that the museum gets "left on it's doorstep." some of it was pretty good. others were pretty horrible. also note, the security guard was ridiculous strict. i took out my cell phone to LOOK at a text message and was scolded. times visited: 1 time in the museum: 45 minutes overall: B-

i visited the national museum of the american indian as the first of a series of museums downtown. the museum was pretty. it's a beautiful on the outside with beautiful large statues surrounding the museum. it is under on construction inside if i remember correctly. the exhibits are very thorough, but the main exhibit was a little rambling. it was about the tribes of the northwest . they spoke with current members of the tribes and displayed regalia. the museum was nice. just nice. times visited: 1 time in the museum: 1 hr overall: B-