P is for ... Paint ... n .. Popular

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'm posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

P is for Museo Nacional del Prado

Prado is the national art museum of Spain, located in Madrid. It started, as most of the European art museums did, modelled in part after the Louvre, but different from it in one important aspect - the Louvre's collection originated from nationalised Crown property or confiscated holdings from the Church or nobility as a result of the Revolution. The Prado started with the royal art collection at its core, being  thrown open to the public in 1819 by the then King. 

According to its official Guide, it is the  largest and most significant collection of artworks from the Spanish school including Goya, Velasquez and El Greco. In addition, it has significant holdings of other European masters  such as Rubens, Bosch and Titian. A must visit if one wants an understanding of European art generally and the Spanish school.

It started with 311 paintings initially but that had increased  to 4000 by 1827, in less than a decade. Today its holdings amount to over 20,000 works - 7600 paintings, 8000+ drawings, 4000+ prints and 1000 sculptures. 

The Velasquez Entrance and the main facade of Prado.
Not where the visitor's entry is...

Which is off to the side and the queues were long when I visited.
There was this busker playing rather enticing tunes - I didn't
recognise them but they kept me pleasantly occupied while
we waited in line.  

The oldest artwork there is from the 5th century BCE, the oldest painting from the 12th century, though bulk of its holdings are from the 16th to 18th century royal collection. As such, the museum authorities feel while Prado is not vast like the Louvre, it is 'eloquent' rather than 'exhaustive.'

Must see masterpieces at the Prado include, among others:

• The Garden of Earthly Delights - Hieronymus Bosch

• Las Meninas - Diego Velasquez

• The Third of may, 1808 - Francisco de Goya

• The Annunciation - Fra Angelico

• The Descent from the Cross - Rogier van der Weyden

• Saturn Devouring his Son - Francisco de Goya 

 

Photography is strictly prohibited inside, I'm not sure why it's done by some museums and not by others. However, mine is not to question why. I like clicking quick photographs in museums as aide memoires, as fatigue always sets in and everything is a blur after a few galleries. The quickpics help me relive the experience and deepens my understanding of the artworks. Anyway, there was no chance of doing that here, so I got the Guide instead. It's less than 500 pages, so it too is nowhere near exhaustive. 

Still life. Always a special interest. From the Guide.

Portrait of Ferdinando Brandani, an official for the
Pope's Secretary. By Velasquez, c. 1650.
Source: The Prado Guide

   

Whatever its size of holdings or gallery space, obviously that has nil to do with Prado's popularity - it is the 13th most visited museum globally. It drew over 3.5 million visitors in 2025, a number that has been rising through the last decade, so much so that museum authorities have introduced crowd control measures to avoid over-tourism. That's borne out by personal experience - it sure was busy when I visited in 2017, as the queue shows in the photo. For all that, it has some superbly amazing art and I had a very pleasant time there. 

Read more about Museo Nacional del Prado by clicking the link here for their website.

P is for Petra

The other place I wanted to tell you about is Petra in Jordan. Like Ellora and Elephanta, this too is rock cut, an entire city half built and half carved out of mountains, only from a far  more ancient time so even more awe inspiring. 

Petra is a premium example of an ancient caravan city connecting Arabia, Egypt and Syria-Phoenicia, on the trade routes between the  Red Sea and the Dead Sea. The area around Petra had been settled by humans for many millennia, from about 7000 BCE.  The Nabateans,  a nomadic Arab peoples, came to settle in the area in the 4th century BCE. Petra was built by them and later became the capital of the Nabatean kingdom in the 2nd century BCE, based on the proximity to the trade routes and the revenues from it  - incense from Arabia, silks from China and spices from India. 

They were used to harsh desert conditions so could work the land skillfully. The Nabateans were super expert desert farmers, stone carvers and rainwater harvesters. They built an ingenious system of channels, tunnels, diversion dams and cisterns that gave them masterful control of their water resources. There are many types of structures built/carved into the rockfaces, the most famous being Al Khazaneh or The Treasury, which shows distinctive Hellenistic features. Petra is known for its Hellenistic architecture, the proof of their exposure to diverse cultures, all of which were inflenced by Hellenistic culture. 

Petra flourished till the 1st century when a part of was conquered by the Romans in 106 CE and absorbed into the Roman Empire. The city gradually declined under the Roman and Byzantine Empire. As other sea routes opened up and its geographic advantage diminished, Petra became a dead city. It was rediscovered by European travellers in the early 1800s. Formal  excavations started in 1929 and are still ongoing as digital and newer technologies to explore and document historical structures emerge. UNESCO incorporated it as a World Heritage site in 1985.

The ancient city has the remnants of over 800 different structures spanning a range of tombs, monasteries, amphitheatres, streets, temples and cisterns/diversionary dams. It is approached through a narrow gorge called the Siq which opens out dramatically in front of the Treasury building.  

Walking the Siq, some horse carriages were ferrying
 tourists to the entrance.

I visited Petra in winter 2013 - it is a huge area, over 25,000 ha and pedestrian traffic only, so you can imagine it is impossible to cover the whole in a day. Camel, horse and donkey rides were available but I chose to walk. When I went there were no motorised buggies, just horse carriages which covered the Siq only. From thereon it was feet, human or animal. I believe carts/buggies have been introduced in the Siq for elderly and/or disabled passengers since. 

Just before the Siq ends and the city begins.

First view of Al khazaneh or the Treasury,
the most famous building of Petra.

I spent the whole day merrily rambling in and out of buildings and turned back only when I realised the sun was really low. I had got separated from my family and had nothing on me except my camera, my guys had thoughtfully taken my backpack off me somewhere in the Siq. So I had no mobile phone (not that it would have worked inside the Archaeological Park, I don't think), neither any money nor light. Mountains get super dark after nightfall as I know from personal experience. There was a guided tour called 'Petra by Night' but that didn't begin till 8-8:30 pm. So I practically sprinted out of there over the uneven pebble strewn paths and down the Siq and omg! was I glad to see the family waiting for me outside! 

Animals waiting for custom. Petra is carved from mountains of
red sandstone which gives the buildings their distinctive colour.
For this reason Petra is also known as the Rose City. 

Despite the rather undignified scramble at the end, I thoroughly enjoyed my day in Petra and would go back in a heartbeat given half a chance. It is a truly wondrous site that one can return to many times. Jordan itself is a country worth visiting multiple times for its historical/archaeological sites and also for its plethora of Judeo-Christian and Islamic sites of religious significance, if you're into pilgrimages. 

Since I've been there a new site museum has come up with Japanese grant. This is just outside the entrance to the Siq/Petra and houses the arterfacts found among the ruins of the city. Showcases the Nabatean, Edomite and Roman civilisational aspects, the lifestyles and the rise and fall of Petra. Proposed in 2013 and inaugurated in 2019.  Read more here.

The paths of Petra. 

As per UNESCO, Petra is one of the 'world's most famous archaeological sites, where ancient Eastern traditions blend with Hellenistic architecture.' Read more about the reasons why Petra is world heritage material over here.  The ancient city is one of the most visited archaeological sites in Jordan and got over 1 million visitors pre-Covid years. Recovery has been a bit patchy due to regional instability affecting tourism.  And the current war is not helping I'd imagine.

Read more about Petra by clicking the link here and here. 

Did you know that Iran, known as Persia till 1930s, has 29 UNESCO World heritage sites? Several have been reportedly damaged by the recent war, unfortunately. I have been to Tehran as a school kid but don't have any worthwhile memories of the trip. Would definitely like to go that country and explore their super rich and deep history and millennia old historical/cultural connections with both the East and the West. Once the dust settles. Fingers crossed the ceasefire leads to a complete cessation of all violence. 

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Thank you for visiting and reading and particularly for your patience today! Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026 

O is for... Out.. Of ... n ... Ordinary

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

O is for Orsay...Musée d'Orsay 

Musee d'Orsay on a winter morning.

This is another one of those - a museum in a stunning building that in itself is a thing of extra ordinary beauty and a joy forever - like the Guggenheim but in a totally different way. Orsay is an artspace  housed in a converted railway station with a super dramatic story of its own. Read that over here. 

In short, it was built on the left bank of the Seine for the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900, to bring in people from SW France to the main Exhibition sites. Gare d'Orsay was the first station designed for electric trains, so no steam or soot or smoke and therefore the architects were able to cover the station with a high glass ceiling. However, it became obsolete by the late 1930s because its platforms were too short to accommodate the longer electric trains. From 1940s onwards it was used for a mishmash  of things - as film location, as political venues, as a temporary centre to hold prisoners and deportees. It came close to demolition in the 1970s and redeveloped into a modern, vastly different looking hotel.  Thankfully, it was saved from that in the nick of time! - the Ministry of Public Works refused planning permission. The station and its hotel were therefore restored and Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated in 1986.

The Musée d'Orsay has a collection of over 18,000 artworks spanning paintings, sculptures, photographs and architectural elements focussing on a specific period of 1848 to 1920ish. It picks up where the Louvre leaves off with respect to Western art, especially the Impressionist and post-Impressionist  artists.  Orsay has a premier set of artworks by super renowned masters like Monet, Renoir, Manet, van Gogh, Cezanne, Rodin and Degas. Must see works there include 

• Woman with a Parasol  - Claude Monet, 1875. Incidentally, Orsay has a collection of nearly 100 paintings by the artist and is one of the topnotch art galleries to view his works, including the Blue Water Lilies (1919)  and Wild Poppies (1873)

• Starry Night over the Rhone - Vincent van Gogh, 1888. Orsay's collection includes more than 20 of his works including the Self Portrait painted in 1889 and The Church at Auvers (1890). 

• La Classe de Danse (The Ballet Class) - Edgar Degas (1874-76). The museum hold over 100 artworks by Degas, including paintings, pastels, drawings and some of his bronzes. 

• Apart from the above, the collection includes several significant works by Renoir, Manet, Gauguin, Courbet, Whistler,  Cezanne and several others. Among the sculptures are preeminent works by Rodin, Carpeaux, Gauguin and Degas and other French masters.

The Musée d'Orsay is the second most visited museum in Paris and ranks consistently among the top ten art galleries visited globally. It attracted 3.75 million visitors in 2024 and around 3 million in 2010, the year I was there.  I had half a day in the museum, totally not enough, one could spend an entire week in there. I'd visit again if I had the chance, and this time, I'd allow some time to go to Claude's garden in Giverny to see his lily pond that inspired him. 

Read more about the Orsay by clicking on the link here, here and here. JFYI, the museum is renovating its reception areas from March 2026 to 2028, so please check what's accessible for viewing if you're planning to visit.

O is also for the unfinished Obelisk 

Image credit

This one is in the Aswan quarries in Egypt, thought to be commissioned by Hatshepsut (1473-1458 BCE, we've met her earlier in my H-post) for the Temple of Amun Ra in Karnak. It was likely abandoned halfway because of flaws discovered in the stone. I visited it sometime in 2011, it is even more impressive up close, walking round the whole things is quite good exercise. My camera at that point didn't have the capacity to fit the entire obelisk into a single frame. The Obelisk is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is visited by thousands everyday.

Had it been successfully completed, it would have stood 42 metres high, higher than any other Egyptian obelisk. And weighed a mind boggling 1168 tonnes too! - to be floated down the Nile to Luxor, a distance of 200 odd kms and then erected to stand vertically like a pointing finger at the sky. All without a single unit of  electric or steam energy, on human sweat and muscle power and willpower alone. Hats entirely off!

Image credit

Did you know that this interior clock, originally designed to guide travellers in Gare d'Orsay has become an iconic symbol of the museum? It is one of the most photographed areas in the space and offers stunning views of the Seine and Montmartre through its glass dial, accessible to visitors from the top floor.  

There are actually three monumental clocks in the museum, two on the exterior facade and one inside. They were designed by French architect Victor Laloux (1850-1937) as part of the station in 1900. These Beaux Arts and Art Nouveau style clocks blend industrial functionality with Belle Epoque aesthetic values and have become signature pieces of the museum and popular exhibits in themselves.

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Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026 

N is for Nifty ...n ... Natural ...

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

N is for North West

N is actually an easy letter to write to, because every nation in the world has what it calls a National Museum of Something or Other. There's the National Museum in Delhi, which I've visited some 15-20 years back. Among other things, I recall seeing a burial site from Harappan times complete with a woman's remains with conch shell bangles still encircling her arm bones, the exact same type of bangles that are used by Bengali women in my hometown as marital jewellery even today in an unbroken tradition going back 3500 years. 

There are the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, also the Natural History (a total bonza candidate!) of the UK, all of which I've been to. A quick search on the Net shows that there are more than 100,000+ museums in the world designated as National Museums! You see what I mean by easy?

The  interior of the Natural History Museum in London, UK.
 The building itself is beyond spectacular!

Natural History Museum, stained glass to die for -
one could go there only to revel in the architectural
 elements and take in the exhibits as an afterthought.

However, as you know, I am no great fan of easy. So today we're going farther North. North West to be precise. Far beyond Europe or UK. Across the pond to Raleigh, North Carolina and a cluster of museums that I visited 2023-24 winter  - the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, the North Carolina Museum of History and the NC Museum of Art. 

The NC Museum of Natural Sciences. An area of over 300,000
 sq ft and the largest such institution in SE USA. It also has facilities
elsewhere in the state. Contains a vast collection of
over 2.5 million specimens. 

The NCMNS has its exhibits spread over 7 floors,
includes dioramas of various life forms found in NC, 
prehistoric Mesozoic life as well as reconstructed
skeletons of dinosaurs.

The star of the show. The Acrocanthosaurus 
skeleton in the atrium.

The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is the most visited museum in the state with over a million visitors annually. Certainly it was busy when I went in during the winter holidays. Read more about the museum by clicking the link here. 

N is for NC Museum of History

In contrast, the NC Museum of History was more compact and basic. The oldest human settlement in the NC area goes back some 14,000 years. However, bulk of what I saw was focussed on the post colonisation period after entry by Europeans. Pre-Columbian Native American history is quite sketchy and from my SM posts at the time, the narration in the audio referred to Native Americans  as 'Indians' which felt uber strange to me. No detailed history of the separate tribes, only some reference to the way things panned out between the two sides, Europeans and Native Americans.  The museum is currently closed for renovations, coming back bigger and better and hopefully more in-depth treatment of Native American history. 

North Carolina Museum of History. This section
 called 'The Story of North Carolina' takes up the
entire lower level gallery space.

Archaeological evidence of human stone tool usage in NC. There
are very few exhibits after this till the 16th century when the
Europeans first came. In a country that's eye deep in research
and research grants that definitely felt a bit weird to me. 

I was mega-chuffed with this section of the museum
 as you can easily imagine. I'm sure I used this for
my posts in A-Z that following April. 

What I wrote at the time was - the museums that I've visited (in NC) have been super interesting, not always in terms of the depth of the collections or the age of the exhibits but in how the whole attempt is to engage young minds from the very start, the efforts at creating a community long term, the discerning marketing - and I mean that in the most positive sense, not the usual commercialisation con that's meant by it nowadays.

A whole gallery was devoted to a schoolchildren's organisation called the Tar Heel Junior Historians' Association with child members of different age slabs and from various schools participating in programmes and competitions. Creating an appreciation of history and how it is made and studied - from the role of everyday lists and journals to doctors' prescriptions to architecture, from regular print and AV media to social media. A palpable sense of continuity - today's ordinary events lived by ordinary people turning into history tomorrow. Exactly my idea of the primary work that a museum should be doing.

And finally... the North Carolina Museum of Art

During my visit there was an exhibition titled 'Dutch Art in a Global Age' which is where I spent the lion's share of my time. The special exhibition presented paintings and objects d'art from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, complemented by five of NCMAs own Dutch masters' paintings - it explored the interfaces between colonial expansion, commercial networks of trade and their impact on Dutch art. There were works by celebrated Dutch masters such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Gerrit Dou, Rachel Ruysch and others.

Art fan at the exhibition. Wooded River Landscape with Shepherd.
Jacob van Ruisdale. Painted 1650-55. Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Since I had written on this topic before (for WEP's prompt Antique Vase) I obviously found it mega fascinating. The whole exhibition highlighted the connections between exploration, colonial expansion, trade, exposure to new products/cultures and their impact on art - both on how it was created and how it was consumed. As the Dutch VOC ships explored new routes and opened up the world, the commerce in tobacco, sugar, pepper, hitherto unknown fruits and flowers, ceramics from China etc became incorporated into the painting of Dutch still lifes. Tobacco, for instance, became a subgenre of stilleven by itself. As did breakfast items, often depicting sugar. I learnt a few new things, feasted my eyes upon lovely colours and objects and felt thoroughly satisfied with the use of my time there.

Rene Descartes. By Johann Suyderhoef. Engraving.
Around 1650. The French philosopher found it easier to
write in the comparatively tolerant Netherlands after he
angered the RC Church in France. 

One of the stillevens of fruits introduced from
foreign lands.

An exposition on how colonial expansion impacted art.
There were maps too, charting the routes the Dutch ships
took. And similar ones on how demographics changed
and a merchant class grew and along with that
a demand for secular art depicting the new
luxurious lifestyles.  

All in all, a day extremely well and enjoyably spent.

The museum has an area of 164 acres and an annual footfall of over 1 million. Read more about the NC Museum of Art by clicking the link here.

I find it makes me a bit uncomfortable that a state with a 14,000 year deep history has comprehensive archaeological/historical evidence preserved only for the last 500 or so. Most of the Native American history that I saw at the NC museums are through modern day recreations in pictures/tableaux and audio visual animations. It bothers me vaguely. What about you?

I understand that there is a Museum of Native American History in Arkansas which has actual Pre-Columbian to Paleo artefacts, 10,000 of them! I don't quite understand how such a huge period has yielded a few thousand items only...but better a few than nothing at all I guess, will have to check this one out when/if I get the chance. Have you been there? If so, what was your experience like?

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Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not! 

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026 

M is for... Met ...n ... Model ...

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

M is for The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met on a sunny summer's day.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, often called the Met for short, is  an encyclopaedic museum of art. It is by area the largest art space in the Americas. Located in New York along what is known as the Museum Mile, it is the most visited in NYC and fourth by visitor numbers globally. Its over 490,000 collections span art from all corners of the world covering about 5000 years of human history. I visited it about 5 years ago and I'd go back in a heartbeat if the opportunity arose!

Detail of the Fourteen Year Old Dancer by Edgar
Degas. 1922. Tutu added later.

The Met began in 1870 in Paris with a group of American philanthropists, artists and financiers who wanted to bring art and art education to common American people. The original collection was around 175 paintings and has grown to its current size organised into 17 separate curatorial departments. Its collections comprise of masterpiece paintings, sculptures, objects d'art, furniture, musical instruments, costumes, armour and weapons and other historical objects as well as contemporary artworks. Among them are works by Vermeer, Degas, van Gogh and Hokusai and other super famous names. As well as Egyptian Pharaonic temples and eye-popping Egyptian objects. The Met has holdings of exquisite works of Islamic and Near Eastern art and also those from classical antiquity. It is a space where one can lose track of time altogether.

The museum got around 5.7 million visitors in 2025. Read more about the Met by clicking the link here. 

M is also for Madurodam 

Madurodam is a miniature theme park and tourist attraction in the Hague, the capital of the Netherlands. It is named after George Maduro, a young student who fought the Nazi occupation. Madurodam exhibits a range of scale models, exact replicas of various important and famous Dutch landmarks. They include the Binnenhof, the seat of the government; Schiphol airport; canal houses; windmills and the port of Rotterdam among others.  In short, it showcases the Dutch way of life to visitors. It was opened in 1952 and attracts 600,000-700,000 visitors every year. I've visited it sometime in the late 90s and remember being impressed by the meticulousness and the attention to detail. There are miniature trees and people, correctly attired for the season. There are tulip fields and football stadia and train stations, all 1:25 scale exact replicas down to the very last detail. The Dutch are perfectionists!

Madurodam, 1999. Yours truly is there in the photo only for
illustration of scale.

Even without any humans in the frame, the scale is evident from
the regular height buildings in the background. 

Read more about Madurodam by clicking the link here.

Another super famous candidate for M is undoubtedly Madame Tussaud's Waxwork Museum which has a slightly different type of models. It is not exactly a museum but an interactive theme park type visitor attraction. I've been there as a kiddie kid only once, there were just two Madame Tussaud's then - the main in London and another in Amsterdam (I've never visited that). They are now dozens of them in multiple cities all across the world. Never had the chance or the inclination really tbh, to go back to Madame Tussaud's London because of the rush. The London waxworks get around 2.5 visitors annually, yikes. 

No photos from that long ago visit, sadly but I do remember I enjoyed myself there, especially in the Chamber of Horrors, as crime was always one of my favourite genres even then. Read about Madame Tussaud's here.

Did you know there is a mini- Europe in Belgium? Though I have been to Antwerp I haven't been round to that. There are similar miniature parks in Germany and Israel as well. Are there any miniature parks where you live? 

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Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026 

L is for... Let's talk about the ...Largest...

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

L is for the Louvre

The Louvre is the top visited museum worldwide, holding its preeminent position for decades altogether all through the 20th century, for the longest time. It was also the largest museum globally till October 2025, occupying over 350,000 sq feet of space and housing a collection spanning prehistory to mid 20th century. (The Grand Egyptian Museum opened in November 25 and overtook the Louvre, so now it's got pushed to the second place) However, it remains a firm favourite with both local and foreign tourists and is still the most visited museum in the world. It got 9 million visitors last year, of which roughly a quarter were local French/residents and three quarters were foreign visitors. It is so popular that museum officials have expressed concerned about over-attendance!

I have visited the Louvre twice, once with my parents long, long ago and once again with my kid, also long ago now. No sensible photographs from those visits, as the DSLR was still in the future and phone cameras were still quite basic. But it doesn't matter as the Louvre is super well known and familiar to most museum lovers. (And also to the readers of the Da Vinci Code!).

The Building

Let's talk about the buildings first - quite historic on their own. The Louvre was originally a fortress, first built around 1190 on the orders of Phillip II (later Phillip Augustus), as he planned to leave for the Third Crusade. He had a defensive wall built around Paris and the Louvre Castle protected its western side on the right bank of the Seine. Parts of this fortress have been excavated and can be viewed in the basement of the modern day Museum. 

The protective walls were expanded in the 14th century. In 1364, the Louvre's defensive purpose was altered and it became the royal residence - a palace for the first time in the reign of Charles V. The Louvre continued to be used as an arsenal and a prison in the 15th century, but the royal preference shifted to other palaces for residing and the buildings fell into disrepair. In the 16th century, the Louvre was modernised and made into a Renaissance style palace, other palace buildings were built  nearby in the Tuileries  and connected to the Louvre. 

The royal court moved to Versailles in 1682, therefore the Louvre came to be occupied by various institutions and individuals as tenants as well as squatters, the Louvre was abandoned. By the close of the 18th century, the French Revolution had changed the use of the buildings again - the king was forced to return from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace, his courtiers moved into the nearby Louvre. But as the Revolution progressed they emigrated out and more individuals occupied their quarters. In January 1793, the French king was guillotined and by August, the revolutionary government decreed that the former royal palace should be a national museum for the public display of its collection of masterpiece paintings and priceless object d'art and that was that! From fortress to palace to abandoned to museum in 6 centuries. 

In the 1980s the Louvre Pyramid was constructed as the main entrance to handle increasing visitor numbers. Much controversy surrounded it at the time and still continues. It has however, become a symbol of the Louvre regardless of whether it's loved or hated. 

Read more about the Louvre buildings by clicking the links here and here. 

The collections

Do you know where one of the earliest law codes - the Code of Hammurabi, is located? Yup, it's at the Louvre. That museum has nearly half a million pieces from the earliest human civilisations from 7000 BCE to the 1840s. From Neolithic Stone Age statues to Renaissance masterpieces and objects d'art. Take a virtual peek at some of their most famous  collections here.

The Louvre houses some of the most iconic art - the most famous being the Mona Lisa (La Gioconda, 1503-19) by Leonardo  da Vinci (nice fit for the day's letter, how lucky is that ha!). Other must-see attractions include :

• the Venus de Milo (classical Greek statue depicting Aphrodite, dated to 2nd century BCE) 
• The Winged Victory (classical Greek statue of the goddess Nike also dated to 2nd century BCE)
• The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese (Painting depicting Biblical subject of the wedding feast where Jesus turns water into wine, 1562-63)
• The Raft of the Medusa by Theodore Jericho (1818-19)
• Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio (1604-06)

Read more about the Louvre and its collections by clicking on the link here to access their very comprehensive website available in both French and English.

Did you know that there's a Louvre Abu Dhabi that is an art space on the Saadiyat Island known as 'France's largest cultural project abroad'? It came into being through a treaty between the French and Emirati governments that licenses the space to use the name Louvre till 2047. It is the largest gallery space in the Arabian Peninsula and has a signature 'leaves of light' dome which replicates the effect of sunlight filtered through palm leaves in the central atrium of the space. It was inaugurated in 2017 and drew 1.4 million visitors in 2025. On my wishlist for sometime now, unfortunately I left the UAE in 2008 and haven't had an opportunity to visit Abu Dhabi since for anything else but a short layover in the airport between connecting flights.  Read more about the LAD here.

Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026 

K is for... Knock out ...n ...Knowledge ...

 

Hello and welcome! to another A-Z series on M-i-V... 

All through April I'll be posting on the broad theme of Museums & Monuments Across the World - mostly those I've been to and a few on my bucket list that I haven't been able to visit yet. Museums are one of my favourite ways to get to know a culture, they sum up what those peoples want to preserve and pass onto their grandchildren, the facets they want to show their foreign visitors, how they perceive, present and preserve their own storyline and that of their interactions with the world. Come museum hopping with me!

K is for Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is a botanical park, or more correctly the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world renowned park and a World Heritage site. It was initiated by Princess Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales and the mother of King George III (whose reign has come to be defined by two main historical events - the American Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States, and the Regency brought about by his mental illness).  Anyway, Princess Augusta started a 9 acre botanic garden in the pleasure grounds of Kew in 1759 which has grown to 300 acres and become the UNESCO site we know today (here's a brief timeline). It is the largest botanical garden in the world and has the most diverse collection of plants, housing over 50,000 living plants and 7 million preserved specimens in the herbarium. Kew also has its own  fascinating A-Z btw, have a peek here.

I'd been planning and plotting to go to Kew since the late 90s, but there are so many things to do and see in London that I never made it to the Gardens till 2018. It is totally a knock out visitor attraction and there are sub-attractions within the attraction to boot. I've just been on a repeat visit early this month. Spring in the gardens is beyond awesome. Tulips and cherry blossoms and camellias and a gazillion others all in bloom. 

As far as museums go, Kew has several separate botanical museums and gallery spaces - Museum 1 is near the Palm House and houses collections on economic botany including tools, ornaments, food and medicines. The Marianne North Gallery and Shirley Sherwood Gallery both showcase botanical art, the former dedicated to Marianne North's work and the latter exhibiting both classic and contemporary art. Here is a guide to the Marianne North Gallery. Marianne challenged the idea of painting flowers/botanicals in the studio as was common in her time and went out to paint plants in their natural setting. 

Marianne North Gallery at the Kew Gardens. This Gallery
first opened  in the 1880s. It  displays the botanical paintings
of Marianne North, the daughter of a MP and a widely travelled
lady from a time when women didn't travel much. It's the only
art space dedicated to a single artist in England.

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery, which is connected to the Marianne North Gallery,  has a collection of more than 1000 paintings of 300 artists, from 36 countries.  

Apart from these art spaces, the Kew Palace, the Queen's Cottage and the Queen's Garden are of historical significance and/or monuments in their own right. So are the temples and structures such as the Great Pagoda and the Ruined Arch. 

The Great Pagoda built in 1762.

Flowers at Kew, the Botanical Brasserie is in
the background. Summer 2018. 

Flowers at Kew, from the Great Border Walk.
Spring 2026. 

Flowers at Kew, Spring 2026.

The Kew Gardens are a top rated attraction and though the travel time from central London is around half an hour or so,  Kew gets over a million visitors annually.  (Hyde Park, also a Royal Park and more importantly, more accessible as it is located in the heart of the city and has no entry fee, unlike Kew, gets around 13 million visitors in a year). 

The Ruined Arch built in 1759-60.

Kew Gardens have a comprehensive website detailing all the various buildings, structures, plant groups and different aspects of economic botany that might be of interest to visitors physical  and virtual. The herbarium is mostly digitised and available to researchers.  Kew is one of the most important botanical knowledge resources used by scholars and conservators worldwide, apart from being a delightful tourist attraction and a family picnic spot. Read more about Kew by clicking the link here. 

K is also for Karnak

Karnak is a massive Pharaonic era temple complex located on the east bank of the Nile at Luxor, Egypt consisting of several sprawling structures. These were a part of the monumental city of Thebes, the capital city of Ancient Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and the New kingdom periods. The earliest  construction of Karnak has been dated to around 2055 BCE. The temple has been added to  from then on till Roman times, so Karnak has continued to expand over a period of 2000 years. It consists of several shrines to different gods/goddesses, pylons and hypostyle halls. 

Colossi of Pharaoh's at the temple entrance

Obelisk inside Karnak. Installed by Hatshepsut, btw.
The tourist chap gives an idea of the scale to which
the Ancient Egyptians built. Kewl or what?

The avenue of Rams. 

There are four main precincts in Karnak - the precincts of Amun-Re (the top god. The protector of Pharaohs, the king of the gods fused from the invisible power of the sun and the wind), Mut (mother goddess and the consort of Amun Re), Montu (the god of war, depicted as a falcon-headed or bull-headed man) and the temple of Amenhotep IV. The last was a fascinating chap - he changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten and founded the first ever monotheistic religion by abandoning the pantheon of Egyptian gods to worship solely the sun-god Aten.  Incidentally, all Pharaohs were considered divine, gods in their own right. They were the living reincarnation of the son of the sun god Re and were the intermediaries between the gods and human, keeping order in the world through their divine powers. Anyway, I digress. Coming back to Karnak, only the largest precinct - that of Amun Re is open to the public, the rest are either being restored or not safe to view.  

The ruins of Karnak are considered an open air museum and are the second most visited Ancient Egyptian site after the Giza Pyramids.  I've visited Karnak multiple times, however, there are photos only from the visit in 1998. The other times I was there for the Son et Lumiere or the light was poor and so no snaps. 

K is also for Konark

Konark is a ruined sun temple located in the eastern coast of India, in Odisha, an overnight journey from my hometown in Kolkata.  It  was built around 1250 CE and is recognised as an iconic example of Odisha (also known in medieval times as Kalinga) temple architecture. showcasing intricate stone sculpting skills. The original temple consisted of two parts a tiered pyramidal structure at the front with the main temple tower behind and rising far above it. Today only the former building remains. The temple complex also included other buildings such as the naat mandapa or the dance hall.

The pyramidal temple structure is built in the form of  a chariot - Surya Dev or the sun god in Indian mythology travels the sky in a chariot drawn by seven horses (7 colours of the rainbow, 7 days of the week - that number is not a coincidence!) There are 24 wheels of the chariot, each with eight major spokes, also symbolic of time measurement on the Indian scale (a day is divided into 24 hours and  8 prahara, each roughly 3 hours). The entire plinth of the temple is carved with animal. human, and floral motifs, depicting mythological tales, scenes from ordinary life, musicians, hunters, women applying makeup or wringing their wet hair and so on. Among them are also maithuna figures - couples engaged in ritual sex. The detail and finesse of the sculptures are mesmerising. 

The Konark temple is a UNESCO World Heritage site and draws thousands of visitors daily - I was one of them in 2013. Read more about Konark by clicking the link here. 

The wheel of the chariot.

The part that still stands - the chariot of the sun god. 

One of the statues of the deity.

A women waiting for her husband/lover at the door. 

A pillar from the dance hall.

Did you know that around 400 specimens kept in the herbarium at Kew were collected by Charles Darwin himself on his Beagle voyage? I kind of keeled over in awe when I read that.

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Thank you for visiting and reading. Have a wonderful A-Z if you are taking the Challenge and a wonderful April if you're not!

Posted for the A-Z Challenge 2026