Susan Solo – Photographer | Traveler | Adventurer

Tag: museums

Tourist at Home: Renwick Gallery

It truly boggles my mind, how many quality museums and galleries we have access to living in the D.C. Metro area, and I’m constantly adding to my list of must-sees as exhibits come and go. Chris and I both had yet to ever visit the Renwick Gallery, so over the long July 4th weekend we decided to go see the WONDER exhibit before its final days.

Part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Renwick Gallery houses contemporary crafts and decorative art, and admission is free to the public. And if the free entry isn’t enough of a bonus, photography is encouraged!

The Renwick Gallery completed a huge two-year renovation last year and reopened with the highly Instagrammable exhibition, WONDER, full of large-scale whimsical pieces.

I’ll leave any real critiquing to the true art connoisseurs, but I personally loved this exhibit. As the title suggests, the pieces play with the imagination and inspire wonder. I especially loved Gabriel Dawe’s vivid piece, Plexus A1, constructed of sixty miles of rainbow-colored threads.

A few of the installations will remain as part of a long-term collection including the hanging Volume piece (shown below), but three of the other works will close next weekend on July 10th.

Aside from the WONDER exhibit, there are plenty of interesting and beautiful works of art in the permanent collections.

The gallery is located just a few blocks from the Farragut West metro station so it’s an easy addition to any D.C. day itinerary. We popped in shortly after opening (10am daily), and since it’s a smaller building we spent a little under an hour meandering through the various displays. I highly recommend a visit, and bring your camera!

July 4, 2016
36-ish Hours in Toronto

(Note: I’m interrupting my Ireland/Scotland coverage for a moment to post about our weekend in Toronto. I’ll return with another Ireland post shortly, and then I’ll finally move onto the Scotland photos and stories!)

Sometime a while ago, I decided perhaps a bit arbitrarily that an eight-hour car ride is my one-day road-tripping threshold. Four hours before lunch, four hours after, and that still leaves an evening in the destination city. So when Chris and I were deciding on where to road trip on a long weekend (Columbus Day), I looked at the map and figured out where we could drive within eight hours. Chris had been wanting to go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and I pretty much just wanted to go anywhere, so lo and behold we headed to Toronto!

We actually ended up leaving after work on a Friday evening so that we could get a few hours behind us and have a good bit of Saturday in Canada. After an overnight stop in Du Bois, Pennsylvania (pronounced “doo-BOYS” and not “doo-BWAH” as one might think if one studied French for five years), we followed the changing foliage up through the rest of PA and New York.

Since Niagara Falls was on the way and neither of us had ever been there, we planned to stop by for a bit to take photos pending good weather. As luck would have it, the weather cooperated and we were even treated to a rainbow!

We stopped at Horseshoe Falls on the Canada side after parking near the Table Rock welcome center. I couldn’t believe how crowded the whole park was, although it was Saturday on a holiday weekend so maybe that’s a big “duh” on my part. We hadn’t planned to stay long and didn’t have a strong desire to do any of the falls-related activities. That said, Niagara Falls is a spot where you can spend as little or as much time as you want. It looks like a lot of people make a day or several days out of it, but we were happy to take pictures, look through the gift shop, and be on our merry way. I would have loved to see the falls from a helicopter, but the view from the ground is pretty spectacular, too.

After leaving Niagara, we ended up getting to our Airbnb condo in Toronto around 5:30pm, leaving us enough time to settle in, explore a little bit, and to grab dinner/drinks in the city. Let our almost-a-day-and-a-half in Toronto begin!

The weekend was evenly divided between Chris’s picks and my picks for things to see, do, and eat. To go along with Chris’s Hockey Hall of Fame theme, we ate at Wayne Gretsky’s on Saturday night and perused some hockey memorabilia.

We considered going up to the top of the CN Tower to check out the views, but we opted to give it a miss this trip since we were limited on time and didn’t want to spend it in a queue. As one of Toronto’s top attractions, I read that the tower often requires quite a long wait in line to ascend and to descend, especially on holidays and weekends. Next time!

On Sunday morning, we walked over to the Hockey Hall of Fame when it opened (10:30am on Sundays). We spent a little under two hours touring the museum plus the gift shop, and found that it was starting to get busy as we were leaving, so getting there at opening hour was a good call.

Of course, we looked for Washington Capitals artifacts wherever we could find them. Go Caps!

The museum features plenty of interactive opportunities for kids and kids at heart. You can try your hand at shooting the puck in a life-size computerized game, play a round of bubble hockey, or compete against another player in NHL ’15 for PlayStation. We also watched a hockey-related 3D movie that I thought was a smidge on the cheesy side, but still good fun.

Perhaps one of the biggest highlights of the museum is of course seeing the Stanley Cup. We didn’t hop up there with the trophy (I only snapped the photo below), but a photographer is on-hand to take a professional souvenir photo of each guest with the cup, and then the image is for sale in the gift shop.

Onto one of my picks, we headed over to the Dundas West neighborhood downtown to check out a new bar I heard about all the way down here in Virginia. The Lockhart, an otherwise unassuming and cozy little bar, is receiving quite a bit of press worldwide for being a “Harry Potter-themed bar.” I’m going to give The Lockhart its own post so stay tuned for that, but here are a few photos from our visit.

And as my other pick, I’m a total sucker for a good aquarium, so after a delicious dinner at Taverna we headed across the street to Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada for a sea creatures fix. I expected the aquarium to be more on the quiet side since we visited well past peak hours, but at 8pm it was still hopping. Monday was Thanksgiving in Canada, so I assume that might have attributed to what would have otherwise been a quiet Sunday evening. Nevertheless, we enjoyed exploring the various tanks and features, especially the Dangerous Lagoon with the longest moving sidewalk in North America.

To finish off our quick jaunt to Canada, we ended on a sweet note Monday morning with a cinnamon roll and an apple fritter at Tim Hortons. The sugar rush gave us a much needed energy boost for the 8.5-hour ride home.

So that was Toronto! It was a pretty easy drive from the Washington, D.C. area, so I’m keeping it on my list as somewhere we need to revisit in order to see a bit more of the city. Let me know if you have any favorite spots that we need to check out next time!

October 13, 2015
Dublin Part II: Drinking Our Way Through Dublin

In pretty much any town or city in Ireland, you’ll see nods to some of the country’s favorite suds and spirits: a Guinness sign here, a whiskey* barrel there. So during our two days in Dublin, we decided to pay homage to two of Dublin’s most traditional industries – distilling and brewing. When in Rome, right?

We started off with a fantastic tour of the Irish Whiskey Museum, which turned out to be the perfect introduction to the process of making whiskey – information that would come in handy a week later when we headed to Scotland. As someone who abashedly craves instant gratification, it was interesting to hear about the labor of love that results in a final product that can take a dozen years to make. The informative and entertaining tour was 15 euros and it lasted about an hour with a tasting at the end. Chris upgraded to the VIP tour at 18 euros and received an extra whiskey to taste plus he received a souvenir glass.

After the tour, Chris and I sampled a few different Irish whiskeys. I should note that my participation in the tasting involved taking tiny bird sips of each taster, and then passing the rest of the whiskey onto Chris. Over the course of our two-week trip to Ireland and Scotland, we visited ten distilleries and I tried to find a whiskey/whisky that I like, I really did, but it’s just not my thing. ‘A’ for effort though? I had fun trying.

So, speaking of distilleries, the Old Jameson Distillery was our first of the ten. Located on Bow Street in Dublin, the Old Jameson Distillery is no longer a production facility, but the re-creation is no less fascinating. We arrived just as it started to rain and this was the perfect option to escape the dreary weather (15 euros each for a one-hour tour with a tasting). It was also here that I found a way I can enjoy whiskey – Irish coffee! Chris and I ate lunch upstairs in the 3rd Still Restaurant while waiting for our tour to begin and we ordered a real Irish coffee. I didn’t expect to like it since I don’t drink whiskey OR coffee, but apparently when you put the two together plus a good amount of sugar and fresh cream it magically becomes something delicious.

Between you and me, I didn’t expect to thoroughly enjoy the tour either since the distillery isn’t operational and I assumed a fake distillery would be a little dull, but the tour is done quite well and our guide did a fantastic job of engaging the participants. Plus the whiskey at the end is entirely real, and booze is always fun, right? Our guide led us through a comparative tasting where we sampled a Scottish whisky, an American blend, and of course good ol’ Jameson. I was surprised to discover that Jameson was the easiest for me to drink (or rather to bird-sip).

Next up is our trek to the Guinness Storehouse since it is often said that no trip to Dublin is complete without a St. James Gate Brewery visit.

Well, I hate to be a party pooper and my opinion might be an unpopular one, but I wouldn’t put the Guinness Storehouse in the number one spot on my Things To Do In Dublin list. At 20 euros each for admission, this isn’t a cheap tour, and because the museum is on so many must-do lists, I think my expectations were perhaps a bit too high.

On the plus side, the expansive museum can handle the volume of guests for the most part. We visited on a Saturday evening along with hundreds and hundreds of other people, but I never felt like anyone was crowding me. That is, at least until we got to the Gravity Bar – more on this below.

There are some beautiful displays and I appreciated the graphic design elements of the museum, but a lot of the information and history is delivered via videos and we had a hard time hearing the audio in a room full of excited tourists.

The best part of the tour is without a doubt the lesson on how to pour the perfect pint. We waited in line for about twenty minutes before our group took a turn at the tap. A Storehouse guide gave us a fun lesson and we learned the exact science that goes into pouring a pint of Guinness. We also took a group photo behind the bar where it looks like I’m chewing on the tap handle. Composition (and lighting) issues aside, it was nice that they offer to send the complimentary image file to your email address – all you have to do is fill out your information at a kiosk.

I was looking forward to drinking that perfect pint upstairs in the Gravity Bar where you can take in a 360-degree view of Dublin, but when we arrived we found standing room only (barely) and nary a wee bit of space to sit or set our glasses. At that point my feet were tired from touring and from standing in line and I just wanted to sit down, so I was pretty frustrated.

We still enjoyed perusing the enormous gift shop downstairs and purchasing a Guinness caramel chocolate bar helped to soothe my woes. I recommend the Storehouse visit to anyone with a love for beer, but I would recommend going during non-peak hours and buy advance tickets online to save a few euros.

Chris and I finished our alcohol-fueled tour of Dublin in the famous Temple Bar district. We didn’t spend much time here though – we were still battling the jet lag and couldn’t hang! Our intention was to grab a drink at Temple Bar as one of the tourist checklist items, and then to check out the scene where the locals drink, but the time difference and a very comfy hotel room got the best of us. Next time!

*Please note the correct use of the spelling of whiskey here vs. whisky when referring to the version from Scotland.

September 21, 2015
Dublin Part I: A Handful of Highlights

When I put the itinerary together for a week in Ireland, I decided that a couple of days in the country’s capital at the beginning of the trip would allow us to adjust to the time zone before getting behind the wheel of a car. You’re welcome, citizens of Ireland. (I would especially recommend this approach to anyone who isn’t used to driving on the other side of the road – please don’t try to drive when you’re jet-lagged if you can avoid doing so!) Besides, Dublin looked like somewhere we’d enjoy exploring, so we parked ourselves there for two full days.

After landing in Dublin and getting settled at our hotel (we stayed at the Radisson Blu Royal; a fantastic hotel in a perfect city-center-but-quiet location), Chris and I had two things on our minds: exploring the city, and eating lunch.

Being food-driven and hungry from travel, lunch won as the priority. Our fun cab driver from the airport highly recommended a popular chipper just blocks away from our hotel as the best place for fish and chips in the city. We were sold and headed to Leo Burdock to join the likes of Ray Charles, Lisa Kudrow, and “Justin Timberlake’s Parents” as patrons. I mean, if it’s good enough for the Timberlakes, it’s good enough for us, right? Note: The food is excellent, but portions are huge! We could have easily split one meal.

With full bellies and a goal to stay up late enough to conquer our jet lag (we made it to exactly 7:45pm), we set off to wander the city and cover a few planned highlights, starting with Trinity College. As an avid reader and book lover, I enjoyed getting a peek at the Book of Kells, but the highlight for me was visually perusing the treasures of the gorgeous Long Room library. We booked advance tickets online which allowed us to skip the queue at the door. They also let us in hours ahead of our scheduled time when we arrived earlier than we planned. And on a Friday afternoon in late August, the crowds were totally manageable.

After getting our bibliophile fill at the library, we continued to wander and eventually found ourselves on a tour at the Irish Whisky Museum. More on that in the next post, along with our time at the Jameson Distillery and the Guinness Storehouse (there’s a clear theme here)

I have to come clean though: when it comes to big cities, I harbor some pretty polarizing love-hate feelings. Now, hate is a strong word and it’s not quite the right word, but I tend to get a little overwhelmed in crowds so I often feel a bit awkward and out of place in larger cities. I’m also (apologies to any smokers) really really not a fan of breathing second-hand smoke, which is difficult to avoid in the city. I’m pretty sensitive to it and I get headaches.

As for the love side though, I savor the ample people-watching opportunities. And I have such a great time photographing city details: architecture (oh, the architecture in Dublin!), people, signage, doors…I could spend the rest of my life in Dublin and not capture all of the wonderful interesting details.

Hopping onto one of the hop-on-hop-off tour buses gave our feet a wee break on the second day when we had more of the city to explore. We had amazing weather for about 75 percent of our two days in Dublin; the other 25 percent caught me without my rain jacket and wearing shoes that I didn’t want to get wet, so the bus helped with that aspect as well. Apologies for my grumpiness that afternoon, Dublin. Lesson learned: be prepared for quick shifts in the weather in Ireland. (Duh, right?)

Up next, we drink our way through Dublin via Irish coffees and pouring the perfect pint of Guinness!

September 16, 2015
Photo Friday – Head of the Class

Oh the things that Chris does to make me smile/laugh – I love him for it! At some point he might have asked me not to post this photo, but I can’t remember for sure so we’ll just see how long he lets me keep it here.

This image was taken at the Skógar Folk Museum in southern Iceland inside a tiny schoolhouse that originally stood in the town of Mýrdalur in 1901. It was moved to the museum and reconstructed there in 1999 among a collection of other original buildings. Of note: the scale of the furnishings and the building itself! With the low ceilings and the tiny seats we felt like giants! The museum is well worth a visit if you’re traveling the Ring Road, especially if you need a rainy day activity. You’ll get to see and tour turf farmhouses and other fascinating examples of Icelandic architecture.

August 14, 2015