Dutch Golden Age

I am finally posting this on 8th June, three weeks after my visit. The reasons for the delay are:

- there were too many photographs taken and I needed to go through them, but more importantly
- the experience turned out to be nothing like what I expected a visit to a Louvre would be and I didn't want to write my journal while it was so fresh in my mind

So, we made the not-so-clever bold decision to go on World Museum Day. I was sent an email inviting me and one guest to get free entry. The exhibition I wanted to see was of the Dutch Golden Age (Extra 1). May 18th was the last day for it, so we were cutting it really fine.

We had a good drive to the Museum but realised we picked the wrong time when we saw loads of cars lining up to get into the car park. I made a quick decision to have the car valet parked. All went smoothly there, so we were in by 5 pm. (I must record here that the Museum was open until 1 am on this special day.)

I think a notice must have been sent out to the schools as we saw people from all walks of life. I thought it was really cool they were interested to "see humanity in a new light". We were going through the galleries in sequence, but it was so hard to move around, I said to G we should see the things we really want to first.

The Dutch artist's paintings were just amazing. I never imagined I could see art like this without having to get on an aeroplane. Even more incredible is how close we were able to get to the art and best of all - photography was allowed! What I wasn't prepared for was families with kids who had absolutely no interest or appreciation for the fine art before them. I lost count of the number of times we heard the alarms go off. A Code of Good Museum Behaviour wouldn't come amiss!

Next was the exhibition of Photographs: An Early Album of the World (extra 2). These are the first images captured when photography was being invented! There were over a hundred pictures to see, but I only photographed a few and then narrowed that down to eight. The crowd/uninterested kids seemed to thin out by this time, or maybe it was because we were coming up to Iftar.

We moved on to the main galleries (extra 3). By this time, we were tired and had enough of what seemed like people on a day out rather than in a fine art museum, so we went through three galleries before calling it a day. I later found out that I missed seeing some Van Gogh, Monet etc. paintings. Argh! If only there had been some signs or a guide of what not to miss.

The drive home was easy with just one stop at the Last Exit for a light snack. I would love to go back and have a good look around, but I would definitely avoid a weekend and World Museum Day especially if the two coincide!