Summer Reruns - 4

Taking a summer hiatus of sorts and as with TV shows, I'm offering some reruns.

On a Vantage House trip I visited in Library of Congress in July 2017.  At the end of this post I'll provide a link to what I shared about the outside.

Friday, the 28th, I visited the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.  As promised from my last post where I showed the outside of the building, here is the inside splendor.

Quoting from the pamphlet " The Great Hall is the grand centerpiece of the Italian Renaissance-style building, which is theatrical and heavily ornamented in a Beaux Arts tradition."

Looking up at the ceiling from the first floor.

"The ceiling, seventy-five feet above the marble floor, is decorated with stained-glass skylights."

Here's the skylight.

The Main Reading Room is reserved for researchers but there's a viewing overlook.

"The Main Reading Room's domed ceiling soars 160 feet above the floor."

My photo is taken through glass so you see the reflection.

A friend here at Vantage House worked here 50 years ago and had her desk in one of those alcoves overlooking the main floor.

This is a mosaic of Minerva as she stands ready to defend a civilized society.

It's at the top of the stairs to the viewing overlook of the Main Reading Room.

A view of the Capitol through one of the windows.

"The Library of Congress was established in 1800 ... and the initial collection of 740 books and 3 maps was housed in the new Capitol Building until August 1814, when invading British troops burned the building, destroying the library."

 "President Thomas Jefferson, then retired and living at Monticello, offered his personal library as a replacement.  In January 1815, Congress appropriated $23,950 to purchase Jefferson's collection of 6,487 books..."  The collection was housed in the new Capitol.

Another fire destroyed some of Jefferson's books.  In 1897 a new separate building was opened as the Congressional Library.  The sign above shows which books on display were original to Jefferson's library and which are replacements of ones burned.

Sorry for the poor photo but even with the low light setting it was difficult to capture the space.  Here are some books with green ribbons, original books of Jefferson.

Here is the room where they are housed now.

There are all manner of exhibits in the Library of Congress (Exploring the Early Americas Exhibition, Waldseemuller Map Exhibition, Mapping a New Nation Exhibition, Bob Hope Gallery, Gershwin Room) but the one I was anxious to view was the Gutenberg Bible.

"Produced in Mainz, Germany in the mid 1450s, the Gutenberg Bible is the first book printed using movable metal type in Western Europe."  It's one of three still in existence printed on parchment.

All through the building are paintings and interesting features.

It was a great place to explore and its one to return to again.

Here's the link to what I shared about the outside.

Summer Reruns - 3

Taking a summer hiatus of sorts and as with TV shows, I'm offering some reruns.

From Summer of 2016 our trip to Finland then a river cruise on the Danube followed by a stay over outside Munich.  Here's the first entry.  A link to the next one will be at the bottom and you can read on from there.

Part I: Helsinki, Finland

On June 1st we left the USA for Europe.  First stop - Helsinki, Finland.  My sister in law is from there and she and my brother arrived several days before us to stay in a Flip Key rental apartment.  We joined them on the morning of the 2nd after arriving by Icelandair.  To make sure we adjusted to the time change we set off to see the city right away.

Here are some highlights from the first day.

Starting off on our walk.  My sister in law in the brown, her brother and sister in law in front of her, my brother looking back at me, and my husband, Dan in the striped shirt.

The apartment we rented is in that yellow building on the second floor overlooking the street.

Access to the apartment was by this circular stairs or this elevator.  Dan loved using it.

Walking to the downtown was very easy from the apartment.  We walked past this park every time which commemorated the deaths of victims of the plague.

The city is a mix of old and new.

This window display of succulents and cacti was really striking.

The promenade was in the heart of the city and always filled with people.  We brought warm weather and being so far north days were very long.

The birds fought over this perch on top of this statue.

Never seen this sort of store in the states.

More to come.  Stop by again.

To see more, go to this link and then after reading that one scroll to bottom and click on Newer Post.

Summer Reruns - 2

Taking a summer hiatus of sorts and as with TV shows, I'm offering some reruns.

From July 2015, a visit to the Smithsonian.  This is timely with recent news about our ancestors. See this article.

I recently read "The Strange Case of the Rickety Cossack" by Ian Tattersall, a wonderful description of how the study of our origins as human beings developed as discoveries of ancient remains were made.  With the scientific advances of carbon dating and DNA testing we know so much more about how we evolved.

A visit to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the Human Origins exhibit was necessary for me to see for myself what Tattersall was describing.

As you walk into the exhibit through a tunnel you are met with these depictions of our ancestor species and a timeline of when they lived and what skills they developed: walking upright, tool making, social groups, use of fire, etc.

There are displays like this one that allow you to compare your footprints to earliest known footprints.

 There are skeletons.

There are sculptures.

There's a booth that takes your photo and transforms it to your choice of an early human.

Then there are the heads in glass cases at the height they would be.  You can face them one by one and wonder what life was like for them.

No need to have our species represented as a head because we are all around at this exhibit.

We lived on Earth initially with three other species: Erectus, Neanderthal, and Flora all of which are now extinct.

I've only shared a bit of the exhibit.  It's worth the trip if you are visiting Washington, DC.