museums posts
by Jessica Festa (RSS feed) (3 days ago)
Feb 8th, 2012 at 2:00PM: While every city has its own unique landmarks, culture, and sights to see, there are certain general things you can do in any city you visit to make your experience more memorable. To enhance your next trip, take this checklist with you and try to do each of these things in every city you visit.
Sample the local cuisine
One way to really get to know a culture is through the food. It's ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (3 days ago)
Feb 8th, 2012 at 10:00AM: After having seen Athens and Corinth, I couldn't resist visiting one of the other great city-states of ancient Greece: Sparta.
Sparta needs no introduction. It's a star player on the History and Discovery channels and that schlocky pseudo-historical film 300. While I wanted to see the ancient ruins where brave warriors once strode, my main reason for going was to explore nearby Mistra, a ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (5 days ago)
Feb 6th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
This is a Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun with gold plated parts. It was given by the Defense Minister of Kuwait to former Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, probably as a thank you for his nation's help in liberating Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. It's one of a case of Papandreou's personal weapons on display at the Athens War Museum.
Greece has a long and proud ...
by Jessica Festa (RSS feed) (7 days ago)
Feb 4th, 2012 at 11:00AM: Barcelona, Spain, is full of fun things to do and interesting sites to explore. Luckily, the city features many experiences for the budget traveler with free museums, walking tours, beaches, parks, museums, dance shows, and more. Use this list to help you save money while still experiencing the best the city has to offer.
Walk down Las Ramblas
Las Ramblas is the most famous street in ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (8 days ago)
Feb 3rd, 2012 at 11:00AM:
Visiting Greece and not visiting the Acropolis is unthinkable. Set atop a high rock overlooking Athens, the temples here were built primarily to honor the city's patron goddess Athena in all her attributes. The buildings here are some of the best examples of Greek architecture and have had a profound effect on the architecture of all the Western world. While I have a preference for medieval ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (10 days ago)
Feb 1st, 2012 at 10:00AM: It's not easy being the caretaker of Greece's heritage these days. Greek museums are facing budget cuts, strikes, reduced staff, even loss of visitors due to riots. The National Archaeological Museum had many rooms closed during the peak tourist season last summer due to budget cuts, and strikes are regularly closing all publicly owned museums.
Take the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens. ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (20 days ago)
Jan 22nd, 2012 at 9:00AM:
It looks like the Space Shuttle, but it isn't. It's made of plywood, for one thing, and it can't fly.
Yet it's a piece of aeronautics history and will soon grace Seattle's Museum of Flight. This training shuttle, more properly called the Full Fuselage Trainer, is a full-scale mockup that astronauts have used for practice since the 1970s. The museum originally hoped to get one of the four ...
by Melanie Renzulli (RSS feed) (24 days ago)
Jan 18th, 2012 at 2:30PM: Gamers: put "World of Warcraft" on pause, lay down your controllers, and take note. Beginning on March 16, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, will open the first major exhibition of video games. The Art of Video Games will show how video games as an artistic medium have evolved over the past 40 years and will feature 80 games, all of which were chosen in a public vote in 2011. ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (24 days ago)
Jan 18th, 2012 at 12:00PM:
Workers at the Henry Ford Museum are busy setting up a major new exhibition of 130 historically significant cars and trucks.
Driving America opens on January 29 and focuses on the effect of the automobile on American culture through interactive touchscreen displays, artifacts, and personal accounts. There's even a mobile diner from 1946 that will be serving classic American diner food.
Of ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (26 days ago)
Jan 16th, 2012 at 9:46AM:
London is full of great places to see. No matter what your interests are, this city has something for you. In fact it has so much there are some incredible attractions that are overlooked by the majority of visitors. Here are five you might want to visit.
Kew Bridge Steam Museum
The Kew Bridge Pumping Station, built in 1838, once supplied water and power to London through massive steam ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (27 days ago)
Jan 15th, 2012 at 1:00PM: The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art is one of London's best small art museums. Housed in an elegant Georgian mansion on a quiet street in the London borough of Islington, it has the best collection of modern Italian art in the city and perhaps the nation.
Its latest exhibition is Alberto Burri: Form and Matter, a retrospective of one of the leading Italian figures in modern art. Burri ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (28 days ago)
Jan 14th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is famous for its impressive collection of American art, including iconic images such as Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting Washington Crossing the Delaware. Now that collection has a larger, better designed home thanks to a $100 million renovation.
The New American Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts open Jan. 16 and total 30,000 square ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Jan 12th, 2012 at 4:00PM:
Travelers to London this year will want to stop by the British Museum. Not only is it one of the top museums in the world, with huge collections from the Classical, Egyptian, Medieval, and pretty much every other period, it also hosts several temporary exhibitions every year. As a regular visitor to London I always make sure to see as many of these exhibitions as I can.
The first is Hajj: ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Jan 11th, 2012 at 2:30PM:
The Hungarian capital of Budapest is a popular destination for those who love high art and culture. Its sumptuous National Gallery is famed across Europe, and now it's putting on a new exhibition highlighting the nation's history.
Heroes, Kings, Saints - Pictures and Memories of Hungarian History brings together some of the masterpieces of 19th century Hungarian painting. This was a high ...
by Melanie Renzulli (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Jan 11th, 2012 at 12:00PM:
Before the automobile industry developed cars capable of going 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, there were the microcars. In the 1950s and 1960s, several European countries, in particular West Germany, manufactured cheap, zippy microcars that were one step up on the evolutionary chain from motor scooters. Most of these models are long gone today, save for those hiding in the garages and warehouses of ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Jan 10th, 2012 at 12:00PM:
You'd never know by looking at the cluster of nondescript buildings that they were the scene of the single most important effort to defeat Nazi Germany. During World War Two, Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, England, was home to thousands of code breakers listening in on and analyzing German military transmissions. The site was so secret that its existence wasn't revealed to the world until the ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Jan 5th, 2012 at 3:00PM: The Phoenix Art Museum is one of the city's best art spaces. With more than 18,000 objects in its permanent collection, it brings everything from Picasso to medieval Japanese silk to central Arizona. Their Asian collection is especially good.
Now the museum has started the new year with a major new exhibition. Sacred Word and Image: Five World Religions covers the written word and painted image ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Dec 30th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
Sweden's capital Stockholm has a lot to offer-fine dining, good shopping, lovely parks, access to some interesting day trips (the old Viking capital of Uppsala being my favorite) and a unique museum. The Vasa Ship Museum is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and it's easy to see why. It houses a beautifully preserved 17th century warship.
The Vasa was meant to be the pride of ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Dec 29th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
The ancient goddess of love, sex, and beauty is making an appearance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Aphrodite and the Gods of Love is a new exhibition examining one of the most popular ancient goddesses and her place in the Classical world. More than 150 ancient works of art are on display, including famous pieces such as the Knidia, a life-size sculpture of Aphrodite made by the ...
by Sean McLachlan (RSS feed) (1 month ago)
Dec 27th, 2011 at 11:00AM: The Museum of European Cultures has reopened after a two-year renovation.
Located in Berlin, this museum focuses on the life of the common people of old Europe. While most museums focus on the famous accomplishments of the elite, this one looks at the everyday lives and traditions of regular people so often forgotten by the history books. Folklore museums can be found all over Europe and make ...
Next Page →