Day 2 started late, and we went to the famous Dining Concourse in Grand Central Station for lunch - or, seeing as I'd managed to pick up a nasty and painful sore throat a few days before leaving, a soothing smoothie.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is on east side of Central Park, near the famous reservoir. The outlook of the day was a little bleak, but still impressive.
Entry to the museum is by donation, and you can pay as much or as little as you like. However, we didn't know you actually did have to pay something, because we pretty much just walked right in! Apart from the standard wing of paintings, the museum has a lot of interior design, sculpture, armoury, musical instruments, and other forms of art. I spent a lot of time looking for the unicorn tapestries, having seen copies being traditionally made at Stirling Castle last year. I eventually found out that these were at the Cloisters, a gallery of medieval art we would have to see another day.
Personal highlights of the Met:
- an Egyptian tomb (and the entire Stargate mythology)
- Decorative stairs - strange...
- 14th century Backgammon
- Very early music manuscripts
- Obligatory Jesuses
- A pig thing
- Naughty statues
- Another Jesus Dali - this one a bit more space-age. (I'm collecting them for Tony).
- The only known Apollo Lyre
- The first piano, ever. (Previously they were harpsichords.)
- A Stradivarius
- A buddy Christ'ing African statue
- Artistic androgyny - one is a boy, one is a girl. Can you tell which?
(As you can tell, I have wicket good descriptive arty lingo.)
I love the description plate that comes with this piece of art. Puts "oil on canvas" to shame.
Day 2's gallery is full of art.
Tags: travel
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Shark eh? First draw an S... Oh, wrong creature.