When a trip to Florida was in the very beginning stages of planning Michael mentioned that when he was in high school he and his mom made a visit to The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg since he was so into art and a fan of Dali. After reminiscing about his visit to the museum we decided it would be a fun excursion for our family so that we could introduce our children to the outlandish works by one of the most famous surrealist artists. Our kids love to visit museums and have an appreciation for thinking outside the box, so this museum seemed like a perfect fit for our family.
Lucky for us, the day we visited just happened to be one of the final days of the Dali & daVinci exhibit, which was my favorite part of our trip to the Dali Museum. I never realized that Salvador idolized Leonardo and that there were so many correlations between Dali’s creations and da Vinci’s work. The side by side comparisons of paintings were intriguing, made even more so by the audio tour which gave descriptive explanations of each work of art.
It’s not just the masterpieces that are amazing at the Dali Museum…the entire building and gardens surrounding the building are works of art themselves. Unfortunately the day we visited it was pouring down rain, so we couldn’t walk around the gardens, but we did get a bird’s eye view of the gardens from high up on the third floor through the “enigma” which is a “large free-form geodesic glass bubble“, otherwise known as the most fascinating wall of windows I’ve ever seen. To get to the third floor to view the exhibits and look out over the gardens you can take an elevator, or climb the helical staircase which curves around and around into a spiral that seems as if it goes on and on to carry you to the ceiling.
If you ever have the chance to visit The Dali Museum in St. Pete’s, I highly recommend the free audio self-guided tour, it really gives a great story behind all of the masterpieces, if the audio tour isn’t your thing the museum also offers docent-guided tours. The museum contemplated implementing digital timeline software to provide a more precise picture of when everything was made. And they even had a “mustache tour” for the kids which still gave them detailed descriptions, but brought it down to their level. My kids loved this audio “mustache tour”! They were intrigued and listened closely while investigating each piece of art. I loved asking them for interpretations and thoughts on the pieces as we walked through the museum. As if Dali’s work isn’t interesting on its own…get a five year old to share his take on it and things get even more interesting.
Our Visit to The Dali Museum ::
Max would find himself a spot on the floor and have a seat to gaze at the pictures while he listened to the audio tour:
This picture cracks me up…Sam and Henry are making “Dali” faces:
The Dali Museum is located at 1 Dali Boulevard St. Petersburg, FL 33701 Visit the Dali Museum website for more details about the museum and find out how to purchase tickets for your visit! While you are there grab a bite to eat at Cafe Gala and bring a little extra spending money, because the gift shop is fantastic! We found several treasures in the shop that we just HAD to have!
Florida Vacation 2015: For our Summer Vacation this year we spent ten days in Florida, exploring the Tampa Bay and Gulf area with our family. There was an unusual amount of rain while we were there, but fortunately for us there’s plenty of fun to be had indoors. We spent quite a bit of our trip exploring museums, an aquarium, breweries, restaurants and more! I’ll be sharing our Florida vacation adventures in a series of posts in the hopes that they will inspire you to plan a trip to Florida for your family! Many thanks to my friends at the St. Pete’s & Clearwater Visitor’s Bureau for helping me plan this trip. So many memories were created while we were there!
For more posts about things to do in Florida visit my Florida Travel Archives.
Disclaimer: My family was given tickets to visit for review purposes, but the opinions are 100% my own.
