Marvelous Museums
Posted by Hans Ericsson | Under Food, Drink, and Travel, Tour / Holiday Suggestions Wednesday Nov 19, 2008Museum tours of Europe are very popular, and with good reason. There are thousands of Museums there, all different in their own ways. When most people think of museums in Europe, they automatically think of the Louvre. Museums like The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Prado in Madrid, London’s British Museum, and Berlin’s Museum Island are some of the finest in the world.
The Louvre located in Paris, France originally opened in 1793 and contains over 400,000 works of art. On average, 15,000 people visit the museum every day. The most popular works there are the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. While it would be easy to dedicate an entire years worth of blog posts to the Louvre, let’s take a look at some lesser known museums that may spark your interest!
The Tate Modern Museum in London, housed in a former power station is Britain’s national museum of international modern art. Opened in 2000, it enjoys visitors from all over the world who wish to see modern art styles such as abstraction, expressionism, constructivism, cubism, and pop art. This museum contains works by such artists as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Claude Monet.
The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Brussels, Belgium is a unique look at musical instruments throughout the ages. For a five euro admission fee, you get a head set, which automatically plays the instrument you are looking at when you walk close to it. Hundreds of instruments that you’ve probably never heard of fill these halls. There is also a restaurant on the roof that offers fantastic views of the entire city! A must see for fans of all kinds of music.
If you’re like me and get distracted by shiny things, a visit Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Wattens, Austria will take all day! Set in a “cave” format, you can wander through the rooms set up to provide you with beautiful displays, light shows, and information about crystals. People from all walks of life enjoy this breathtaking museum. The gift shop allows you to take home a wide variety of beautiful crystal ornaments, jewelry, and other pieces of art.
For those who are young at heart, the Nuremberg Toy Museum in Germany will be just what you are looking for. This high quality collection covers hundreds of years of toys, focusing mainly on the past two centuries. Different floors offer various themes such as wooden toys, dolls and doll houses, tin toys, vehicles, toy train sets, steam engines, technical toys and the high-tech toys of today. The museum also host collectors meetings, as well as seminars and puppet shows.
Of course there are many more clever fun museums, but we can’t list them all. Whatever museums you decide to see, a rental car in Europe is a great way to tour the country!
Do you know of any fun museums we could add to this list? If so leave a comment and tell us about it!
Hans, in what museum would one find the bones of the venerable John Merrick? I hear it has been on display for over a century yet although I seek it with painstaking enthusiasm, I have come up short handed in the actualization of the quest. Prithee, wherever rest the legendary bones of the Elephant-Man John Merrick? This wonder of the Victorian Age has delighted people from all walks of life for generations. Infact, Queen Victoria fancied herself honored when she had the pleasure to dine in the presence of the man himself. Hans, it would be most kind if you were to lend your expertise to the matter, perhaps, maybe even immortalising the tale through one of your blog entries?
Well Ryan,
The bones of John Merrick are currently in storage at the museum located in the Royal London Hospital. Unfortunately, they are not available for public viewing. The museum is however, free to the public.
It is aggrevious that the academia of the Greater London Metropolitian area refuses to celebrate the life of John Merrick by exhibiting his legendary bones! John Merrick was something of a celebrity in his era; hobnobbing with those whom belonged only to the utter most elite and afflulent tier of society; such as Sir Henry Morton Stanley and Guy De Maupassant. I am aghast that the public outcry deploring this injustice hasn’t been more reverberous. It is incorrigible that historically significant artifacts such as these are being withheld from observation. It is the divine right of the people that the persuit of knowledge not be obstructed, and I wholeheartedly believe that John Merrick, being the socially adapted man that he was, would have desired for his remnants to be displayed and enjoyed for all to see.
The finest museum I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting was “Murphy’s Sarsparilla Museum and Emporium”. However this amazing place couldn’t be father from Europe as it was located in a town about 400 miles outside Salt Lake City, Utah. They were open on Mondays and Tuesdays and sometimes Saturdays, but this was back in 1973, so their hours may have changed since then.