Museum Hopper

i really wanted to visit the molly brown house .  i felt like we had been when i was in denver before and it turns out that i had!   molly brown is the wife of a man who struck gold in the denver gold rush at the turn of the 19th century.  she went on to be a colorado congress woman and was nicknamed the "unsinkable" molly brown as she was one of the few who survived the Titanic.   the house is a traditional Victorian built in the stylish part of town back then.  i loved how they were able to restore it using (very) old photographs of the rooms.  it was fantastic to see how they were able to find similar pieces or get them back from the estate.   i thought the bedrooms were the most interesting.  seeing how similar they are to ours now, but also so different in some ways.  there really have been no major changes in the bathroom in over 100 years!   i thought the shop was pretty well done too.  i ended up even getting someth...

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...

my husband and i visited the  denver art museum   on our second day in denver.  we really enjoyed it!   the building itself seems like a piece of art.  it is so cool.  i loved the angles and interesting windows.  Each window frames a view of the denver and the surrounding areas. we started at the top of the castle looking portion of the museum.  they had an interesting variety of art work.   each floor in the tower was a very manageable set of art.  i really liked the american art that they had as well as the first nations artifacts.   i also really liked that each floor had sitting areas and places for children to interact with the art!  each sitting area was "themed" to the floor.  we loved peeking out of each window to get a beautiful view of the mountains and denver. we did not go the special exhibit, but it looked fantastic.   overall, it was a great visit.  we loved the sculptural b...

over a month [eeek! so long ago], my husband and i went to the grand rapid art museum since we were in grand rapids for my brother-in-law's wedding.  we were staying a couple of blocks away from it and decided to go over in the morning before the wedding.   we really enjoyed the meeting.  we started at the top and moved down, which i think did make sense. i really enjoyed the religious art exhibit and the different styles of work associated with it.  i loved that they have an emphasis on Michigan artists.  the landscapes were gorgeous.  i enjoy how calming they were and invoked the scenery. the special exhibit, the improvisational quilts of susana allen hunter , were cool!  i did wonder how this becomes "art" as they seemed to functional quilts created to keep people warm.  it was interesting to see how they played with unconventional materials  we did enjoy the museum.  perhaps not one of my favorites, ...

last but not least! on our last day in florence (and the worst weather day of the trip), we made our way to the  uffizi , the mecca for art in italy.   2.6% of my   "1001 paintings to see before you die"   are in that museum!   i booked tickets about two months earlier giving us a 10 AM admission.  like the academy  it was worth the extra 4 EUR per person to have this reservation.  also, please remember your reservation number; that turns out to be the only way that they can look up your reservation!  the reservation allows you to go into a special line.  they admit that line prior to anyone in the other line. the tour groups within the uffizi were out of control.  i (and jason, in particular) wish they had some limits on size since some of them were over forty people huddled around a tiny painting! the museum is pretty easily laid out and it sure is easy to just follow the crowd.  we did laugh that the museum was on...

we spent a lot of time over our few days in florence around and in the duomo. it has a number of buildings that are also considered part of the complex like the bapistry, the bell tower, and a museum! it is hard to miss the duomo in florence.  it seemed as though it is exactly in the middle of the city.  we passed it to go everywhere! the duomo in the skyline from plazzo michaelangelo front door view of the dome from the bell tower to start with, we bought some sort of combo ticket that included entrance to everything except the dome.  the line to the dome seemed rather long (i.e. make a reservation if you decide to go).  the dome is pretty interesting since you get to walk around the inside of it and really study the ceiling murals.  instead of the dome, we opted to climb up the bell tower, which did not have a line. the bell tower's formal name is giotto's campanile .  the climb to the the top of the bell tower was a relatively stand...

we spent a lot of time over our few days in florence around and in the duomo. it has a number of buildings that are also considered part of the complex like the bapistry, the bell tower, and a museum! it is hard to miss the duomo in florence.  it seemed as though it is exactly in the middle of the city.  we passed it to go everywhere! the duomo in the skyline from plazzo michaelangelo front door view of the dome from the bell tower to start with, we bought some sort of combo ticket that included entrance to everything except the dome.  the line to the dome seemed rather long (i.e. make a reservation if you decide to go).  the dome is pretty interesting since you get to walk around the inside of it and really study the ceiling murals.  instead of the dome, we opted to climb up the bell tower, which did not have a line. the bell tower's formal name is giotto's campanile .  the climb to the the top of the bell tower was a relatively stand...