Gorkha Museum - Saturday March 6

After shopping for khukuris on Friday afternoon, we had dinner at the Gurkha Inn, and spent the rest of the night relaxing just outside the door of the house in Gorkha.
Saturday morning the six of us headed out to the Gorkha Museum, which is situated on some very nice grounds (grass being quite rare here I can get a bit excited when I see some) just above the buspark. We went with Dinesh again, which was great, as he was able to explain quite a few things to us.
The museum is located in a 19th century Newari palace, built in a square shape with a courtyard in the middle. It's an impressive building, built entirely from dark brick, with dark wood trim.
As far as museum exhibits go, it was pretty lacking. There is a decent size collection of artifacts, which was fun to look at, but not much signage. I didn't often have much more than a general idea of what I was looking at, so it was great to have Dinesh there, as he was able to explain lots.
This was particularly good when we were in a hallway filled with weapons. Having just bought khukuris the day before, it was fun to see the same knives on display, and there were some big ones!
Gorkha is famous because it was the home of Prithvi Narayan Shah, the prince who united all of Nepal in 1768. It hasn't really capitalized on this in terms of tourism yet, but as an important place in the history of Nepal, being able to read the history of the region over the past 400 or so years brought some perspective to what PNS did. It makes his accomplishments all the more impressive.
Along another hallway is a row of paintings, depicting important events and people from the history of Gorkha region. They were all done by the same artist, which was pretty obvious as the style was all exactly the same. They were quite good, showing the weapons in action, style of armour, and even some with more everyday events. In one, depicting a king with his two wives, both wives had the exact same face. That was a little weird.
By far the best part of the museum was the grounds. There is a 2-level yard, and sitting on the top level we had a beautiful view over Gorkha and the valley beyond. It set the pace for the rest of the day - unhurried and peaceful.