Museum Diary

100 Museums Challenge: Museum No.52 The very last museum I visited on my recent Madrid trip, was the Museo del Romanticismo. They are active followers of Museum140 on Twitter and have taken part in several of our projects, so I felt I had to visit them as a matter of courtesy if nothing else. But it actually turned out to be one of my Madrid favourites, and sipping some Spanish hot chocolate in the beautiful little oasis of a museum garden afterwards was the perfect way to […]

100 Museums Challenge: Museum No.51 Museo Cerralbo is another museum in Madrid, that came recommended to me via my followers on Twitter. I knew little about it but trusted the recommendation, and oh my goodness, what an amazing place it was! The museum houses houses the collection of Enrique de Aguilera y Gamboa (1845 – 1922), Marquis of Cerralbo, a municipality in western Spain. It opened in 1944, and is located in the former residence of its founder. It is one of the few examples in Madrid […]

100 Museums Challenge: Museum No.50 Long time readers of this blog will know, that I have a soft spot for quirky museums, so when I heard that there was a museum about a ghost station on Madrid’s metro, I had to check it out! In fact, the metro station itself is the exhibit. Chamberí station first opened in 1919, and lies between the stations Iglesia and Bilbao on line 1. In the 1960s, due to meet the demands of increased passenger traffic, new and longer trains […]

100 Museums Challenge: Museum No.49 During my visit to Madrid last month to speak at a conference, one of my hosts organised a visit on the Saturday morning to the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid’s National Museum of Natural Sciences. It is apparently one of the oldest museums of natural history in the world, and is not only a museum but also an active research facility, something not uncommon among natural history museums. It shares a building – the Palacio de Exposiciones de las Artes e Industrias – with […]

100 Museums Challenge: Museum No.48 I’m not a fan or supporter of bull fighting. Quite the opposite. So when I read about Museo Taurino – the Bullfighting Museum – during my research on unusual museums in Madrid, I was a bit torn about whether to go or not. But then I came across this quote by Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset: “The history of bullfighting is so closely connected to the history of Spain that it would be impossible to understand the latter without knowing the […]

100 Museums Challenge: Museum No.47 When I was preparing for my trip to Madrid last month – the thing I was most excited about, was visiting the ‘Museo Geominero’. As long time readers of this blog will know, I have a soft spot for the ‘unsung heroes of the museum world’, those hidden gems that often go unmentioned in the ‘must see’ guidebook lists. In fact, it’s what led me to start a project a couple of years ago, a blog that puts exactly those kind […]