Thursday, 1 January 2009

Golden Gate Park

We had half a day for more sightseeing in San Francisco, before heading off to Tahoe.  I was keen to visit the de Young art museum in Golden Gate Park, which had been completely remodelled since my earlier visits to the park.  The outside of the museum does not look particularly attractive from a distance, resembling a massive industrial shed clad in rusty iron sheeting.  Things do not really improve as you get closer, although the exterior cladding does have some interesting textures. Inside, however, the building is much more impressive and provides a functional setting for the art works that it contains.  Three hours is not really enough to do justice to the collection, but I did have time to take in the art of the Americas collection, the modern art collection and do a quick walk through the other sections.  The observation tower was an interesting new feature, providing a view out over the park and much of the Western sector of San Francisco.  Overall, well worth a visit and ideally needing another half day to do it justice.  I would have had liked to have had the time to look round the updated science centre too, as this has been completely revamped since I last visited, but sadly not enough time on this trip.

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