Tag Archives: history
Museum Tourist: Museu d’Història de la Ciutat de Barcelona
Barcelona’s City History Museum is in a former royal palace. There’s a pretty chapel and a big fancy gothic room, which is fine if that’s what you’re into. Oh! I just read in the guidebook that the room is where … Continue reading
museum tourist: mayflower II & plimoth plantation
Here’s my conclusion after visiting the Mayflower II and Plimoth Plantation: Living history is not an efficient way to get information across. I started my exploration of the big tourist attraction in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with the Mayflower II. It’s a … Continue reading
museum tourist: Miraflores Visitor Center
Starting at the Pacific, ships in the Panama Canal go into the Miraflores locks, then the Pedro Miguel locks. That gets them up to the level of most of the canal. On the Caribbean side, they go down through the … Continue reading
museum tourist: Museo del Canal Interoceánico de Panamá
Here’s a weird fact. The “Panama Canal Museum” is in Seminole, Florida, and it’s just about the U.S. involvement in the canal. The museum in Panama City is the “Museo del Canal Interoceánico de Panamá.” That is something along the … Continue reading
museum tourist: Museum of Communism, Prague
Of course, Prague has lots of museums that aren’t natural history museums. We also stopped in on the Museum of Communism. I had been led to believe by the guidebook that this would be interesting. It has great posters all … Continue reading
museum futurist: national museum of african american history and culture
A story in today’s New York Times looks at the trouble inherent in making a museum of the African American experience. Is it going to be mostly about struggle and oppression? About African American achievement? Will it show us all … Continue reading
the astronomer so nice, they’ve dug him up twice
At the beginning of Thanksgiving week, a group of scientists were gathering in Prague to do something a little odder than buying a turkey: exhuming a 15th-century astronomer. The astronomer was Tycho Brahe. He was a weird guy. He lost … Continue reading
bluebirds like to perch
I don’t know a ton about birds, but I do know this: Bluebirds like to perch on posts. If you see something cute and feathered perching on a fencepost in an open piece of land, “bluebird” should at least cross … Continue reading
museum tourist: national geographic – da vinci
The National Geographic Museum used to have a permanent collection. I remember going in high school, looking at the nifty globe and various exploration-related things. (Ok, I admit, my memory is pretty shaky on what was actually in it. But … Continue reading
museum tourist: Linda Hall Library
When I was in Kansas last weekend, we skipped over the border to Missouri to see a nice exhibit of rare books from the History of Science Collection at the Linda Hall Library. This library is kind of a surprise … Continue reading