Rubenshuis (Antwerpen, 11-9-2005)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

Well, obviously the house of Rubens ;-)
I guess that most of you will be familiar with paintings of the Baroque painter Rubens (if not try google ;-p) and can therefor imagine what kind of atmosphere one would expect in his house.

And right so: his house has the feel of being in between the middle ages and the more frivolous classical times. There's dark wooden chests and chairs; and golden leather on the walls in several rooms. Biblical scenes and many many antique gods and satyrs.
The Garden is especially nice. It looks like the perfect place to have a Roman banquet or orgy. There's many nice plants and even grapes and a citrustree.
Yes, Rubens had a very nice place to live, and in the middle of a big city too!

Lucky for us it was a free visit again; otherwise I don't think we'd have paid the full fee of 6 euro's because that's a bit much for just seeing some-ones house and garden no matter how beautiful ;-)

Antique sugarskull

This is a sugarskull from what used to be white sugar made somewhere before 1958!
(collection Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam)

I just have to show this one to you all!

KMSKB (Art Museum Brussels, 4-9-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Still one of my favorite art museums for many reasons:
- it's a nice big labyrinth of a building
- it has art from the 15th to the 21th century
- it has had and will have some interesting exhibitions
- it used to have very nice desserts in the restaurant (haven't been there recently)
- it has the biggest person elevator I've ever seen, with chairs!
- it's in Brussels

This was another free visit so we went to see an exhibit (drawings from Rembrandt and his pupils; nice but very small exhibit) and some highlights in the 15/16th century section (we have recently been to the 20th century and the 19th was closed). The highlights in this section include: Memling, Van der Weyden, Bouts, Bosch, Bruegel (see pic)...

The museumsite has a nice database with info and pics for most of their collection:
check at http://www.fine-arts-museum.be/

MIM (Musical Instruments Museum, Brussels, 4-9-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Normally a museum with only musical instruments would not sound like much fun but the MIM is the perfect exception. The front of the building itself, an Art Nouveau masterpiece, is already worth a visit but do go in as well ;-)

The exhibition rooms are cool, dark and pretty. The instruments look beautiful and there are soooo many!
They have every instrument you can imagine with strings, holes, skins, wood or all of these.
Bagpipes, virginals, ocarinas, mandolins, violins, organs, Jews' harps, harpsichords, drums...
And not just European but also Chinese, Eastern-European, Mexican, African...
But the best I left for last: not only can you see the instruments, you can also hear them! Included in the entrance fee is a set of headphones which lets you hear samples of almost all instruments!!

It's a pity my bag with our money was downstairs because they also have a nice shop and a restaurant on the top floor. So don't forget your purse when you go inside like we did ;-)
Next time I'm sure to take money with me to see if they have any cds with harpsichord and virginal music ;-D

Check the site for exhibits and further info at http://www.mim.fgov.be/

Steen&Been (Fossils etc shop in Antwerpen)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

If you like fossils, stones, bones, insects, shells and would love to own some you should definitely go to this shop in Antwerp. It's very close to the KMSKA so if you ever visit that museum just make a small detour ;-)
The address = Volksstraat 59, Antwerpen. The shop also has some nice Mexican stuff and shell necklaces ;-)

Visit the website for more (dutch) info: www.steenenbeen.be

KMSKA (Art Museum Antwerpen, 3-9-2005)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

I always like these big national art museums eventhough they are usually hot and a bit dusty. Ofcourse we have been here several times before so it's watching the highlights of old and modern art mostly.
Some highlights: Ensor, Delvaux, Magritte, Van Rysselberghe, Rubens, most of the 15th century works and ofcourse Jean Fouquets Madonna (see pic).

As a nice extra they had some works from the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) there and, pretty brilliant, an exhibit with very pristine looking Bruegels.

Fotomuseum Antwerpen (3-9-2005)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

They're supposed to have an impressive collection of photographs and camera's but sadly there was only one exhibit (the other wing was closed) with Belgian photographers from A to Z.

Nice pictures for sure but the big attraction for me was the "keizerspanorama": a big round wooden viewmaster (remember those?) with 20 stereo-pics of the Antwerp Zoo from the end of the 19th century. Ofcourse we watched all the pics doing our version of musical chairs ;-)
The old pics (especially the daguerreotypes) and camera's were thrilling too.

It's a nice museum and it's well worth a visit if there's an exhibit you want to see. And in our case, this time, it was free anyway ;-)