Yesterday (Monday) was a frustrating day. I went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, renowned to be quirky and interesting. I'll say stuffy and irrational, but I am biased.
First of all, the name of the museum is on the side. When you are in front, a few discreet initials on the door are the only indication. So of course I went the whole way around before finding the entrance.
The museum was built by Isabella to be the place where to exhibit her collection. It looks like an Italian palace, with a very nice courtyard (its best feature). The courtyard, well, it's more a cloister, is closed by a clear roof, making it more a greenhouse, which allows fantastically green and exotic plants to grow.
The collections inside are thematically and chronologically arranged. What it means is rooms full of art pieces, be it paintings, statues, objects, tapestries, without apparent order or reason (actually, you have to have the audio guide or ask someone to get the explanation; I got it at the end). Everything is as Isabella choose to place it and the legacy is, of course, not to move things around. I hated it. I found extremely frustrating to leave a medieval-themed room to enter an Chinese-themed one, to have side-by-side an imitation of a Renaissance chapel with imported candlesticks and another Chinese room with here a bell and here a piece of mural. *Shudder*
(They have Flavigny anis on sale at the museum shop.)
So I went shopping to heal my soul, and of course the shops I had marked to go to were uninteresting. I was saved by the Boston Public Library, with its own courtyard and the cafe that served me a New England Clam Chowder that hit the perfect spot.
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| Boston Public Library |
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