Museum Morning

Tuesday, May 9, 2017--Logrono, Spain

Today was my chance to see two museums here which were closed yesterday.  One was quite interesting, while the other was mostly waste of time.

First was Museo de la Rioja, a history museum about this area.  It is well organized, has translations in English for all exhibits, and has an amazing collection of well-preserved items to display from the history of the area.  Least interesting to me were the two religious periods (Islam and Christianity) when everything creative essentially had to be religious.  It's amazing how UNcreative those periods were, especially compared to what came both before AND after them.  Architecture, paintings, and sculptures seem to be all there is to show for those periods, and they were almost entirely limited to religious buildings, religious paintings, and religious sculptures.  The periods before that (from the beginning of known time through the Roman period) involved so much in the way of advancement of society through creative endeavors solving problems which seemed to start occurring again after the the religious periods.

The Casa de la Ciencias, the science museum, was much less interesting.  Essentially there were only 3 exhibit halls.  One was an exhibit of photographs of domesticated animals called Beastiarium, another was an exhibit on Cervantes which was all in Spanish, and the last was an exhibit of reptiles from the area--dead ones in small dioramas.  The one thing that made the walk across the river to this museum worthwhile was a 1910 panoramic photograph of the city of Logrono that was in a hallway between two of the exhibit halls.  It was very interesting to look at it while keeping in mind where I have been in the city.  Essentially, about 110 years ago, the city was just beginning to grow outside of its old walls.  At least 90% of what existed then was what had existed for several centuries.  There has been a major growth spurt since.  And from what I have seen in terms of the ages of buildings, most of the growth spurt has taken place over the last 60-70 years.

Returning to the apartment as the 14:00 closing time approached, I stopped at Pan Caliente and bought a large croissant coated in chocolate.  It was great with a cup of coffee.

Planning to go back out this evening, I stayed inside and read this afternoon.  If you have followed the books I have been reading, you will know that they were all shortlisted for the 2015 National Book Award and that one of the ones I have finished was the winner.  Well, I am convinced that my present book should have been the winner; it is so much better than all the others I have read that I don't want to put it down!

Rain arrived about the time I planned to go back out to see what night life is like here.  Therefore, I am staying inside relaxing and reading more this evening.  Tomorrow is a travel day.