As promised, some further bonus posts from our Summer trip.
One of the real discoveries made during our Summer tour was the opportunities provided by the free tours offered by some of the Museums/Art Galleries we visited.
I guess I had been vaguely aware that these were available but for some reason I had always contented myself with an audio guide or printed programme - probably so that I could view the exhibits at my own pace (I am notorious for taking my time going through museums to get full value….).
In any event, our visits to the New York Metropolitan Museum and the National History Museum - a highlight of our visit to New York- were distinguished by the enthusiasm and passion for their chosen subjects by the various tour guides we encountered. I think that I had seen the tours at the Met advertised when I had booked the tickets (the fact that the banner said “free tours” was always likely to grab my attention) and I had booked A and I on for the first tour of the morning that we went.
This entailed a relatively early start (we had decided on a traditional waffles/pancakes/bacon breakfast at the nearby by Red Flame Diner) and - due to the ongoing traffic congestion in NY - a half hour walk in the glorious New York sunshine from the Hotel via a beautifully lit Central Park.
There were only 3 others on the guided tour - entitled “Greek Portraits” - and the elderly lady who conducted us through the striking funerary portraits in the Egyptian sarcophagus section (slightly counter-intuitively given the title of the tour) and then on through the Japanese/Chinese rooms before finishing up in the European section with a terrific Caravaggio depicting St Peter’s denial of Christ proved both entertaining and erudite.
We were sufficiently impressed to sign up for two further tours - an “Impressionism/Post- Impressionism” tour (again with a surprisingly low number of participants - less than 10 including me and A) that took in the Met’s expansive collection of Monet, Van Gogh, Manet, Degas and Renoir; and then the “Museum Highlight’s” tour which also included Chinese ceramics and a truly splendid “Bacchanal: Fawn teased by Children” by an 18 year old Bernini and a portrait of the “power couple” of the French revolutionary period - the Lavoisiers at a table with their scientific equipment by David (although sadly not so influential that Mr Lavoisier was able to avoid the guillotine in 1794). This left an awful lot of the Met unexplored (although we did manage to take in its Vermeers) and so we will need to return!
The following day we paid a visit to the Natural History Museum on the opposite side of the Central Park and again took full advantage of the various free tours (although they were much more crowded than those at the Met). A much younger crowd and unsurprisingly very similar to the UK Natural History Museum (including the Blue Whale) - we headed off after lunch to go to Broadway for the “Back to the Future” Matinee which was quite the spectacle - reasonably faithful to the film (albeit now a musical) and some excellent effects and afterwards headed back to the Hotel via St Patricks Cathedral and Rockefeller Plaza.
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