The conversation ranges at dinnertime with LT and me and we were talking about restaurants and it came to Glasgow, which we’d both visited some years ago – the circuitous route isn’t relevant, so I won’t go into those details, but it then turned to museums and art galleries, and those we’d visited that we dearly want to go to again.
My top place goes to the Burrell Collection. I don’t often have an absolute favourite, but I do here. If you’ve never been, do. Just go. When it opens, booking will be necessary and so on and Lord knows when any sort of normal life will resume, but go. It is the best museum I have ever been to and I had one morning there and would have gone back every day of my Scottish visit, if I could have. I blogged it at the time and I’ll look and put up a link to the post at the end.
Another one is the Kröller-Müller museum in the Netherlands. An art gallery with an amazing collection of van Goghs and other artists and a sculpture garden, with a park that you can cycle round on borrowed bikes.
There’s the Last Invasion Tapestry in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire in Wales. I’ve been there twice and could visit any day. It’s upstairs in the council office and you go through the library to get there. It’s a community project. It’s wonderful. You see something clever and witty and new every time. I can’t recommend it enough.
During lockdown, Ronan completed a jigsaw that I’d bought him on that Dutch trip, which was just so damn difficult that he had given up at the time. It’s the Panorama Mesdag, in The Hague. This is (I blogged this at the time too) a circular painting of the beach at Scheveningen in 1881. It was one of those things that you don’t have high expectations of, so its fabulousness is a greater surprise than you expect. Saying Scheveningen is a test of your Dutch pronunciation, by the way. Mine isn’t great but it’s better than most English people, because I had Dutch au pairs to teach me and I was a mimic. Rubbish at vocabulary, good at pronunciation.
Here are the posts about the Burrell
So there we are, darlings. Not the most prestigious galleries but some of the most enjoyable and quirky. More are coming to mind as I write, so this subject will be returned to, I am sure.
In general terms I think I’d back the V and A. most of the staff are very specialised and, if they don’t know the answer to a question will usually dig out some expert who does, and the restaurant serves a really decent lunch at not unreasonable prices. I’ve spent a good many very happy hours there. Back in East Anglia I’d say much the same of t he Fitz William Museum in Cambridge.
I certainly would agree with you there, Mike. Not that I think I’ve asked any tricky questions at the V&A, but they are knowledgeable. I think I might return to this tomorrow, unless something happens that is so exciting that it can’t be left unrecorded. Hope you and Ann are well.