Link Love: What Happens When Your Blog is in a Google Ad?

Congrats to @WhyGoParis! In case you didn't catch it last night, her blog, Parislogue, was featured in Google's ad during the Super Bowl!  Parislogue is part of the BootsnAll Travel Network, too.  Check it out:



Hint: When they search for "How to impress a French girl" her blog post comes up!
Now, if Google loves @WhyGoParis, I know you will, too!  I read her blog regularly and encourage you to check it out. Félicitations, Madame Parislogue!

The Gypsy's Books

Angela K. Nickerson, aka The Gypsy, is the author of two books about the city of Rome:



From St. Peter’s Basilica to the Capitoline Hill, this unique resource—part biography, part history, and part travel guide—provides an intimate portrait of the relationship between Michelangelo and the city he restored to artistic greatness. Lavishly illustrated and richly informative, this travel companion tells the story of Michelangelo’s meteoric rise, his career marked by successive artistic breakthroughs, his tempestuous relations with powerful patrons, and his austere but passionate private life. Providing street maps that allow readers to navigate the city and discover Rome as Michelangelo knew it, each chapter focuses on a particular work that amazed Michelangelo’s contemporaries and modern tourists alike.




Angels & Demons has blockbuster written into every page; no wonder it was made into a hit movie! Part of the appeal lies in the setting. As Langdon and Vittoria dash around Rome, they face a fictional villain in real places. The College of Cardinals convenes to select a new pope in the most famous room in Rome: the Sistine Chapel. Tourists posing for photos in Piazza Navona may recall the battle between Langdon and the Hassassin in the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Langdon and Vittoria take their first wrong turn at the Pantheon. Brown skillfully weaves together the familiar and the mysterious into a thriller that transcends the centuries.

Rome’s Angels & Demons: The Insider’s Guide to Locations Featured in the Book and Movie embraces the mixture of fact and fiction that Brown delivers. Slipping between the world of conspiracies and the solidity of a travel guide, Rome’s Angels & Demons: The Insider’s Guide offers travelers a new perspective on the city. Biographical information about the book’s key historical figures—Raphael, Galileo, and Bernini—places them in a historical context, while practical tips afford the traveler an insider’s guide to the Eternal City and maps and photographs help readers see Rome the way Langdon and Vittoria did. Used as an itinerary or as a companion to the novel, Rome’s Angels & Demons: The Insider’s Guide takes the reader into a world of intrigue and collusion.

A Visit to SFMOMA

San Francisco is a city with fantastic museums, and yesterday I spent the day at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).  Housed in a striking marble-clad building, SFMOMA's collection encompasses more than 7,000 pieces dated from 1900 to the present including pieces by Henri Matisse, William de Kooning, and Georges Braque as well as Jasper Johns, Frida Kahlo, and Jackson Pollock.  The collection is diverse and thought-provoking.


This year marks the SFMOMA's 75th year, and to celebrate the museum is mounting a variety of exhibits marking the museum's origins and contributions to the city of San Francisco.  As I wandered the five floors, I was particularly taken by The View from Here, an exhibit of photography.  I am a fan of historic photography, and I was thrilled to take in images of Yosemite from the 1800's and panoramas of pre-earthquake San Francisco hung in the same room.  Work by Dorthea Lange, Carrie Mae Weems, and Ansel Adams hung amidst that of their contemporaries forming an exhibit with accessible bite. 

The Gypsy’s Essentials

  • Location: on Third Street between Mission and Howard
  • Price: $15 per person; students and seniors get discounted tickets for $9 with ID; children under 12 are free
  • Who will love it?: photographers, architects and anyone interested in cool-looking buildings filled with modern art;
  • Notes: SFMOMA has great resources for visiting families. Stop by the Koret Visitor Education Center on the 2nd floor for handouts and child-centered activities to enrich a family visit to the museum.  SFMOMA also currently offers two iPhone tours -- apps that offer a guided tour through parts of the museum's collection: the Rooftop Garden iPhone Tour and the Making Sense of Modern Art Mobile Tour. Visit the iPhone app store for more details. 
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, California 94103
Phone: 415.357.4000
http://www.sfmoma.org
@SFMOMA

Getting there:
The museum has a reasonably-priced parking garage if you are planning to drive.  I parked for nearly four hours for $9 (yes, that's reasonable in San Francisco).  The cheaper, greener alternative, however, is mass transit.  SFMOMA is accessible via bus and BART lines.  Check the museum website for more details.

* Bonus Points if you can find Waldo while visiting SFMOMA! 

Welcome to all of you who are joining me from DeliciousBaby.com's Photo Friday. 


Update
A note of congratulations!  This week the SFMOMA announced that they have raised $250 million so far in their expansion campaign.  When they reach their goal, $480 million, the museum will build a large addition offering more exhibition space and will house the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection.
Read more: SF MOMA Raises $250 million in 6 months