It is normally a 30 minute trip from where we are staying, but we had a couple of things complicate the experience. First of all, traffic was heavy and slow moving. We don't believe there is ever a break from "rush hour traffic" in the LA area - it is always heavy and generally slow moving. We don't know how the locals can put-up with it every day, driving back-and-forth to work and getting around town to do other things. There is public transit, but there are still a lot of one-person-per-car automobiles on the roads as well as a variety of trucks of different sizes. On the positive note if you have more than one person in a car, the HOV (carpool) lanes always seem to be less congested and underutilized.
The second factor today was a lot of construction around the Getty Center on the highway, complicating exiting and entering the interchanges. Consequently, we missed our exit on the first pass. Our GPS quickly recovered however, and routed us through the ritzy neighborhood of Bel Air to the back gate of the Getty which unfortunately was locked. So, we backtracked and approached the museum from the other direction on the highway. This time, we got off at the right exit and quickly found our way to the museum parking lot.
Since the Getty sits on a hill overlooking the city, you park down below and ride a tram up to the museum. It is about a five minute ride in the type of tram you might see in an airport, transporting passengers between terminals. Admission to the museum is free, but there is a charge for parking.
The Getty Center is a magnificent complex of public and private buildings that house the J. Paul Getty Trust, which includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Research Institute, Getty Conservation Institute, and the Getty Foundation. The museum includes an extensive collection of paintings, decorative art objects, sculptures, and landscaped gardens. The buildings are built of Travertine Marble imported from Italy. The emphasis of the museum collections is primarily European, ranging from Antiquity to early 20th Century.
The primary purpose of our visit was to see the famous Vermeer painting "The Woman in Blue Reading a Letter". The picture is superb and we were able to get a close-up look at it as the crowds around the picture were not as large as we expected. We were surprised about the size of the picture however, as we had thought it was much larger. Nevertheless, it was a great experience to see such a beautiful and famous painting. We also visited the galleries displaying the works of other 17th Century Dutch and Flemish artists. We had lunch at the museum cafe and then visited the galleries displaying paintings by 18th and 19th Century European artists, including Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Monet, and Renoir.
We had seen about everything we wanted to see this trip by 3:00 pm and headed back up the highway to the RV Park. We had take-out Indian food for dinner that was very good. We hope to get on the road by 9:00 am tomorrow and get over the "Grapevine" and into the Valley by noon.
Day 22 Pictures
Day 22 Pictures
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