Tuesday was a rainy, windy, cold day. Perfect for an excursion to the Dollhouse Museum in Basel! My mom loves miniatures. Some of my earliest and clearest memories are of going to specialty stores with her and oohing and aahing over all the wonderful minatures. And of course, the fun she had making me little things for my Barbie house. I particularly remember her turning a toothpaste cap into a vase full of dried flowers. Awesome!
Of course, I got a little lost looking for the parking garage. The one we parked in last time was closed (!?!) as in big construction tape across the entrance, so I panicked a bit nto knowing where else to go. I tried following the parking garage signs, but of course, the first one led me right back to the closed garage, and the second one had no follow up sign as to where you should turn next, so it was also less than helpful. I ended up pulling into a private parking garage under the Credit Suisse building. Had I been a Private Account holder there, I am almost positive they would have allowed me to park there, but since I bank with UBS and am not allowed behind the velvet ropes, I didn't bother asking. However, the very nice security guard gave me actual working directions to the next closest public parking garage, twice in German, once in English 🙂 to make sure I wouldn't forget. We found it, found a space that my gigantic car could actually fit into, although we did all have to climb out the sliding side door, and had lunch before walking over to the museum.
We didn't get lost finding it this time. Hurray! But only because I didn't even TRY to find it after we left the parking garage and got up to street level. No, I immediately called Chris, told him the cross streets we were on, and he told us where to go. Love that man! And extra bonus, the rain stopped long enough for us to walk to the museum in relative comfort.
The museum was just as cool as we remembered from December. So jam packed with adorable stuff you don't know where to look first. I did make one rule before we went exploring and that was, no one was allowed to say to someone else, "Come over here, you have to see this!" :) Last time, so many people were telling so many other people to "Come over here" that there was a bit of frustration, and lots of needless running back and forth. This time we tried to stick together as much as possible and move in a somewhat orderly fashion through the museum. If someone wanted to walk ahead they were welcome to do so, but if they wanted to show us something they found especially interesting, they would have to wait until we caught up with them. We weren't running ahead with them. It worked out pretty well, and my mom loved the place as much as I thought she would.
The favorite piece of many of us, was a dollhouse for your dollhouse. It was sooo small, and still had all the details; paintings on the wall, tiny chandeliers, little rugs on the floor. It was maybe 4 inches tall, and was just absolutely amazing. It was displayed a bit high up, so I had to hold up everyone, including Nicholas to see it properly, but it was worth it.
Also, the fan exhibit was replaced with Victorian era wedding gowns and veils. They also had elaborate holders made for their wedding bouquets and tiaras. so they could display them for years afterward. Some of the dresses were absolutely amazing, and others were just totally wild. Apparently, having more money than sense has been an affliction of some for centuries. My favorite little touch was that they had several photographs showing the brides wearing the actual dresses! Very fun.
We made it to the second to last floor of the museum before finally deciding we had had enough. The children and I resolved to start on the first floor next time and work our way up, rather than starting at the top and working our way down. After a quick trip into the tiny, overcrowded gift shop to pick out some fun postcards, we were ready to walk back to the car. And I am happy to report that we found it with no help at all, no getting lost, not even for a second, and no frantic phone calls to Chris were needed. Hurray!
It was raining and blowing pretty hard on the way home, which didn't make for fun driving conditions. But the kids were happy and we were in no rush as Chris was at church for meetings anyway, and it was vacation. So if they got to bed a bit later than normal, it wasn't a huge tragedy. We had nothing planned for the next day anyway, except some quality hanging out time with Grandma. And that is exactly what we did.