Vacation Recap - Boston

First, I have decided to stay with Blogger.  I used my old laptop with Firefox and purchased the extra 20 GB of space.  Hopefully that will last until a year from now.  Thanks to those who responded to my last post.

I have been on vacation since June 12th.  Mrs was also off last week.  Normally we would have been off camping in Vermont as we have for the past two years (I go to the woods to hide for my birthday), but we stuck around this year since Logan has been ill.  We have done a few things, but not what we had hoped, mostly due to rather poor weather. Still, it's been nice to have some time off and get a little more sleep.  I even got up early to go for 5am walks with Mrs and our neighbor around the neighborhood.  How wonderful it is to be out so early in the morning, and the day seems to go by so slowly.

One of the things we had planned was a trip to Boston to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Mrs drove and I had my fairly typical anxiety about being in the city until we were inside the parking garage at the MFA.  We walked a couple blocks to Fenway and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Isabella Stewart Gardner and her husband John ("Jack") Gardner were a wealthy couple who, in the late 1800s, traveled the world exploring cultures and collecting art in various forms.  In 1903 work was completed on Fenway Court in Boston where she housed her collection and made it available for others to experience.  Her history is amazing and for a more in-depth account, please see the museum website (here) for further.  While there, take some time to poke around the site.  A most unfortunate part of the museum's history is a theft of artwork in 1990.  To see the account of the incident at the museum's website click here.  Lost in the robbery were pieces by Rembrandt, Degas, and Vermeer.  A complete list and images of pieces taken are available on this .pdf file provided by the museum.  In the museum, empty frames still hang on the walls where the pieces were once displayed.  My hope is that one day these pieces are recovered and returned to the museum.

Security at the museum is extremely tight and no photography is allowed at all inside.  In fact, the guards and employees were on top of anyone who took any device out of a pocket, including cell phones.  We saw several people being told to put away their phones and the use of them was expressly forbidden.  You could not even look at a text message if you wanted to.  I was standing next to an employee who was talking into a small microphone on his collar as if right out of a movie.  The transmission went something like this:  "Device in the right hand of a white male, brown hair, with a striped shirt on the north side of the courtyard, first floor.  Appears to be preparing to photograph the courtyard."  Not verbatim, but you get the idea.

I really enjoyed this museum, and would enjoy returning when their are fewer visitors.  If in Boston, make this one of your stops.  Allow a few hours at minimum.

We moved on to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston with the initial intention of seeing and exhibition of Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass by Dale Chihuly.  This is an AMAZING collection of glass art now on display in Boston until August before it moves on.  Unfortunately we were in Boston on a Sunday during a not-so-great weather day which meant a lot of other people were there.  A lot.  Epic lines of people to see the display greeted us as we entered the museum.  We decided that we would walk through some of the museum - mainly the American section - to search for a particular piece of folk art (a greyhound from an old carousel) I had been wanting to see since earlier this spring, and return another day to see the Chihuly exhibit.  We spent hours walking though The Americas taking in and enjoying the art.  We could not find the greyhound carousel animal and Mrs finally asked a guard where it might be.  He gave us good directions and it turned out we had not gone through two doors beyond an area we had been to find the room where the piece was.  Mrs is rather familiar with the museum and even she had missed this area.

I was thrilled to finally get to see this piece.

There is much to see at the museum and I won't be adding more to this post other than from the Chihuly display.  Mrs and I spent so much time looking at other artwork, that by the time we were ready to leave the museum there was no line, and plenty of time to walk through the exhibit before closing time without having to rush.  It worked out quite well.

 Boat filled with glass work.

 Part of the massive display.

 This image is taken while standing under a huge display set on a clear glass ceiling.

 Iris Yellow Frog Foot Chandelier

These purple pieces are quite tall, five feet at minimum I would say.

This GIANT yellow glass tree (for lack of a better description) is in the main lobby of the museum.  The crowd in front of it is one of the lines waiting to get into the exhibit.

We'll be returning to the museum to explore.  We have much left to see.