Russel Cotes Art Gallery & Museum is the one place you cannot miss if you're visiting Bournemouth or the surrounding areas! As soon as you enter the gardens leading to the house, you feel you're stepping out of this day-and-age life and into a different world. This majestic house on top of a cliff, facing the blue ocean and standing with its extraordinary character, is, in fact, full of a lovingly feeling of home, where you can feel the passion their founders had for beauty, art and world culture. You can almost feel you're going to bump into both of them there, and the extraordinary decor of all the house takes you away to their place in time. Every inch of this beautiful building is filled with gorgeous paintings, statues, ceramics and artefacts - some unique in the world, like a piece of Lava from an active volcano in Hawaii, with a fantastic story behind it. Merton and Anne Russel Cotes travelled the world to add to their collections and privileged the local and national artists, giving them a platform to display their art. Knowing that not everyone had the privilege to travel and see art throughout their lives, they decided to give back to the town of Bournemouth their whole house and collections so every person could have access to culture and art. The fantastic views of the sea and the bay, from where their rooms were, will take you to a place in your mind of how peaceful life can present itself, surrounded by such beauty. We have visited more than once, now, coming to Bournemouth with the unique purpose to re-visit the Museum. There's something for everyone, and some would say you can see all of it in about an hour and a half. That was not at all for us. We stayed for four hours, not even realising the time flew. The art gallery on the ground floor is rich and intense, with superb Edwin Long oil paintings that will make you travel to his scenes, with detail and expressions jumping from the canvas as soon as you look at them. Other beautiful paintings with an extensive range of genres and representations, with fabulous pieces of chiaroscuro, are also on display, like the "Going to Church, A Dutch Peasant" by Therese Schwartze. Don't forget to look up! Beautiful skylights and ceiling frescos will delight you. At this last visit, we were grateful to see the recent renovations enhance this place's magic. We were fortunate to see the Hidden Highlights Life in Lockdown exhibition: a fantastic show of an array of paintings with these delightful comments connecting them to our real-life events from the pandemic, making them so poignant but hilarious as well. This was the best idea ever! If you're lucky, you'll have a volunteer pianist or guitarist playing whilst you visit, as we had, both visits, the atmosphere gets so more magical! Also very important to say is that Staff and Volunteers are lovely and kin to engage with some stories from the house and the Russel Cotes. They are so knowledgeable, and they will enrich your visit without a doubt!