Visiting a museum with Bristol Travel is a great way to spend a day and our minibus with drivers are often employed taking parties all over the country to visit a variety of museums. If you are looking for ideas for a great day out then we thought we would share with you some of our favourite museums.
1. British Museum
Location: London
This is a huge museum, with over three million artefacts, and you will be unlikely to see everything inside it in a single day. Even the entrance to the building is on a large scale. The imposing columns tower over you as you enter the building and you know that you are in for a real treat.
The museum contains an array of delights that are too numerous to mention but one must see item is Hoa Hakananai’a, a statue from Easter Island. If you are alone in the room with him (and yes I realise I referred to a statue as “him”) you can feel a presence as he gazes down at you.
Other highlights that can currently be seen include Ancient Lives (Ends April19 2015), eight mummies and their stories and The Meroe Head of Augustus.
2.
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.[note 1]
The Gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.[3] Its collection belongs to the government on behalf of the British public, and entry to the main collection is free of charge. In 2019, it was ranked seventh in the world on the List of most visited art museums.[4]
Unlike comparable museums in continental Europe, the National Gallery was not formed by nationalising an existing royal or princely art collection. It came into being when the British government bought 38 paintings from the heirs of John Julius Angerstein in 1824. After that initial purchase the Gallery was shaped mainly by its early directors, especially Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, and by private donations, which now account for two-thirds of the collection.[5] The collection is smaller than many European national galleries, but encyclopaedic in scope; most major developments in Western painting “from Giotto to Cézanne“[6] are represented with important works. It used to be claimed that this was one of the few national galleries that had all its works on permanent exhibition,[7] but this is no longer the case.
The present building, the third to house the National Gallery, was designed by William Wilkins from 1832 to 1838. Only the facade onto Trafalgar Square remains essentially unchanged from this time, as the building has been expanded piecemeal throughout its history. Wilkins’s building was often criticised for the perceived weaknesses of its design and for its lack of space; the latter problem led to the establishment of the Tate Gallery for British art in 1897.
3. St Fagans National History Museum
Location: St Fagans, Wales
This open air museum is close to Cardiff and is set in the grounds of St Fagans castle (the “castle” is actually an Elizabethan manor house). The museum is made up of over 40 buildings that have been rebuilt in situ but are from various parts of Wales and are fine examples of various types of Welsh architecture. Inside each building you get a glimpse into the past as each is fully furnished in a style appropriate to the period.
Among the buildings are a variety of houses, a school, a farm, a chapel and a number of workshops. The craftsmen and artisans in the workshops, such as the blacksmith and potter, give regular demonstrations of their skills.
As well as the living museum you also have access to the Elizabethan manor house and its extensive gardens.
We hope that wherever you visit that you have a fabulous time and remember if you do need to hire a minibus and driver then do call Bristol Travel on 01454 549 165 for a free quote on your minibus hire requirements.