The area around it is still being built up but the Louvre itself is a pretty cool building. Its obviously a lot more modern than THE Louvre, but its architecture is really interesting. And there's grass and trees outside... something we severely miss in Bahrain!
We walked in, got our tickets and started our tour. It opened up into the first room where a world map of sorts was all along the floor and sort of winding around the display cases.
All throughout the museum there were these little displays for children-- they had mini replicas of whatever statue or piece of art was on display and they could touch them and feel what they felt like. They even broke it down and had pieces of whatever the artifact or art was made of (limestone, etc) for them to feel and see it up close. It was a really awesome part of the museum and it really helped hold Stella's interest!
Oh... and there's proof my dad went in (and enjoyed) an art museum! After all the history, military, and airplane museums I've been in in my life, it was time for him to be dragged through an art museum! (Though he was pleasantly surprised that there was history all throughout and not just a bunch of weird modern art...lol)
There was a small Ancient Egypt section which, after touching on mummification and Ancient Egypt in Science club the week before, Stella was pretty excited to see!
In a room past Ancient Egypt they had some jewelry and coins on display but it wasn't just a boring display-- the actual artifacts were on the outside of the display and on the interior were large touch screens where you could see everything up close and zoom in on details and read information about each piece, how it was made and where and when. It made what could have been a really lackluster and boring section really interesting!
We continued on through the museum and I realized that one of the big differences between this Louvre and the original was definitely the lack of... boobs. We noticed on the statues of the men there were fig leaves that looked pretty new but that even with the fig leaf censor, there were no boobs to be seen. Some of the worlds most amazing art is of the female form (Birth of Venus, Venus de Milo, etc) and there was no female form to be seen throughout in that way.
There was a really awesome cartography room with gorgeous maps and globes
A gorgeous handmade carpet
And a room with religious texts-- everything from the Torah to the Quran to buddhist texts. So there may have been some censoring when it came to the human body, but there was no censorship when it came to religion. It was really awesome to see everything co-existing together and not partitioned off alone. There was a world religion wing and it too had everything together.
We found the paintings and saw a VanGogh self portrait
DaVinci's Portrait of a Woman, called La Belle Ferronnière
and Whistlers Mother
And this painting of a young Emir studying (1878)
We found the modern art section, but its lost on all of us so we made our way outside into the courtyard area of the museum. It was gorgeous! The roof was made to provide shade but let in some light... it was like a constellation of light let through. It was so pretty!
We made one last stop in the kids museum and let Stella wander around. It was broken up into different sections and had lots of different interactive things for the kids to do! It was small, but fun!
We finished up and headed out and off to the Emirates palace. Theres a cafe inside where you can have a 24 karat latte or a camelcinno so we had plans to have an afternoon pick me up! We drove up and it was massive! Buuuuuut then we got turned away because you have to be wearing pants and not shorts and we weren't dressed for quite such a fancy affair!
We headed to a little village they have set up to see how Abu Dhabi looked years and years ago and we walked around there for a bit before heading off to grab a bite to eat.
While we were having dinner I got online and looked up where the souk was located. Christopher had said that the Abu Dhabi souk was one of his favorites and that it was really awesome. The whole time we had talked about the UAE he had talked about Dubai being the big metropolis and Abu Dhabi having held on to the Arabic heritage more. Well, come to find out, Abu Dhabi is no longer really holding on to that heritage... they moved the souk to INSIDE of a mall! Its still set up with stalls and decorated the way an old souk is, but its in an air conditioned modern building. It was quite the disappointment when we were looking forward to weaving our way through crowded streets and market stalls.
We did find some souvenirs for people back home and Mom bought a gorgeous scarf to wear the next day, but it wasn't the same feel at all walking through a mall that you get walking down a dusty souk.
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