Places I'm Visiting: The Blackhawk Automotive Museum, Danville, CA

Today I visited the Blackhawk Automotive Museum, in Danville, CA. I've long wanted to see the car collection there because it always housed at least one of the Alfa Romeo BAT cars (for more information about the BAT cars, visit the Wikipedia page on them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa_Romeo_BAT). I was disappointed to find that the museum has been changed a great deal since I first heard about it (years ago). The BAT cars are no longer there and the automobile collection has been pared back substantially to make room for a large exhibit on the upper floor on the "Old West".

That seems an odd pairing, but, even stranger, in a couple of wings connected to the main building there is a large exhibit on China, another showing African Art, and another that is effectively a mini natural history museum stuffed full of stuffed animal specimens. An eclectic mess.

There are, however, some interesting cars on the first floor of the main building (see photos). The whole complex is at one end of a shopping mall that seemed very quiet, if not quite abandoned. The highlight was Draeger's Market, which has quite an impressive selection of wines from every corner of the world. I picked up a Vermentino.