I recently had the chance to visit the Prado museum. My current pantheon is (at descending order ):

the Uffizi
the Louvre
the London National Gallery
the Prado

There are many museums in the world. I love museums. Correction.....i adore museums. I adore everything about them, the silence, the whispers, the chambers , tha artifacts, the works of art ...the journey to find them, their shops their cafe's ......everything.

My most vivid memories from these 4 are :

Looking out the window of the Uffizi, after having visited Boticelli's Birth of Venus. Seeing Florence in the twillight. Knowing that in a few hours I would leave this ancient city but knowing also that the images, the sounds , the smells would be with me forever. Florence is where my heart lies.


I arrived in Paris making my dream come true and attending the Two Towers World premiere (yeah met PJ and cast and crew of LOTR)
Well when not in LOTR premiere i was in the Louvre. And I remember that those days were my last happy days for a long time. After I came back a period of sadness and darkness begun. And as if I knew what was to come I lived, enjoyed those days as much as I could. As intensely as I could. The Louvre will always be my personal temple.
The National Gallery in London was the first gallery I ever visited. It was the first time I ever came close to so many magnificent works of art. I think I will always remember the last day I was in London , before running to the airport squeezing in a last visit to my favorite gallery.

And last ...but not least the Prado, one of the worlds greatest museums. Most visitors to the Prado pay attention to Spain's great 3, Goya, Greco and Velazquez.

I prefered Bosh and his Garden of delights. I loved Roubens and his Orpheus , and I was impressed by the german and flamandic painters.

When one is faced with so much beauty, so many works of the mind, of the human spirit and what we call soul, so much of the best of our humanity I think ....I think there are no words to describe the feeling. I could describe it as tears of joy, as laughter in a clear happy day, as the entrance to a world you never could imagine existed.

And all that beauty in a way becomes part of you when you see it, I mean really see it not just hung around the museum not looking.

When you really look then you can perhaps hear the voices and the sounds of the people in the paintings, the sound of battle or lovemaking , the whispers of the past reaching down to you and making your fantasy a wonderful playground.

Museums are my playground. Thank God for Museums. For those who acknowledge and respect humanity's best. For those who believe in beauty and spirituality. And preserve it at any cost.