Sat: a day of culture and (ugh) shopping

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Grabbed a quick breakfast this morning at home and hailed a cab to la Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the most prominent art museum in Buenos Aires. The building itself was pretty small, at least compared to the Met in NY and some of the SF museums we've been to, but the interior was pretty posh.

The 1st floor was all European art, and at first I was pretty disappointed by the collection. While the early European collection was pretty cool, the next, largest room contained a huge collection of Dutch paintings, but it only housed a single Rembrandt. The Spanish and French rooms were also fairly mediocre in scope, but the "meaty" portion of the European collection turned out to be fairly impressive.

The Bellas Artes only contained a single van Gogh (a windmill painting), but it housed several Monets, Manets, and Degas (Becky of course enjoyed the Degas ballerinas). Most impressive to me was a small room in the rear of the 1st floor that had 10 or so Goya paintings (way cool), with an additional half dozen Goya sketches.

Upstairs was where the Argentinian art was located, with an especially expansive modern art wing. My personal favorite was a large orange canvas.

After the Museo we walked to an old theatre-turned-bookstore before heading back home (via a stop for cafe con leche). Afterwards, Becky ventured to the neighborhood plaza for some shopping, and after a footwear purchase we grabbed some Italian food for dinner. After a visit to a local neighborhood bar (the decor/ambiance was kind of a cross between Sadie's Flying Elephant and Elixar), we called it a night around 2:00.

Busy day planned for Sunday, will try to post before our side trip to Iguazu. Buenos Noches.

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Comments

[Cheryl]

Would you like to buy some new shoooeees?