‘Welcome Back' Several Famed Museums Reopen Across Europe

In the Netherlands, the intimate gaze of the Girl with the Pearl Earring can once again startle and entice visitors. Down in Spain, the rusty maze of steel sheets by Richard Serra is a wonderland anew for art lovers. And at the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam can drop jaws like it has done for ages.

As Europe slowly emerges from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed well over 150,000 in the continent and crippled some of the world’s biggest economies, Monday let a brilliant ray shine through the gloom as several of the top museums globally reopened to flaunt their riches.

All of the Netherlands rejoiced in a relaxing of the lockdown measures that have kept people away from bars, restaurants, cinemas — as well as some of the greatest cultural institutions in the world.

“Welcome back,” said Rijksmuseum General Director Taco Dibbits as the first visitors filed into the vast museum in central Amsterdam

At the adjacent Van Gogh Museum the welcome came with — what else? — sunflowers. Any visitor leaving the museum was given one of the yellow flowers famously depicted by the Dutch painter’s brush to celebrate the re-opening.

Across the continent, museum officials rejoiced as visitors were let in again.