Pinacoteca di Brera

I will take you today to one of the most famous art galleries in Italy - the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. As you may have guessed, it is located in the Brera street.

You will easily see the signs.

The courtyard of the gallery is in the classical style.

It is really spacious.

In the middle you will see the statue of the founder of the Pinacoteca - Napoleon, dressed as the Roman god of war - Mars.

Unfortunatelly it is not allowed to make pictures inside the gallery. But you can allways buy a book...




... or a postcard (here you can see one of the most famout paintings in the gallery, the Kiss by Francesco Hayez).



Time to go home unfortunatelly, so I jumped on my Vespa.

 And off we go!

Casino

This horrible weather in Central Europe makes me depressed. Waiting for the spring to come I decided to find a new hobby. A friend of mine took me to a casino!

 We tried first a slot machine.

 In Poland they call them "killers with one hand". Now I know why. It is so hard to win, no matter how hard you try.

I thought that maybe I will be more lucky with the card. Blackjack was the most tempting option.

Unfortunatelly it proved that it is not easy for a horse to hold cards. So finally I gave up. I am a traveller. He is a gambler.

The Old Town of Tallin

Recently I decided to go on a longer trip. I chose Tallinn. The Old Town of Tallinn is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It is surrounded by well preserved city walls. I entered by one of the gates.

Of course it no longer serves as a protection but in the Middle Ages it was probably quite powerful.

Let's take one of these medieval streets.

It will lead you of course to the Town Hall.

 It is an impressive building with a very tall tower.

The Town Hall is located on the market square. In summer it is of course ful of tourists. In winter it is empty and sad. The weather had one benefit though - you can see the size of the square. In one of the corners I noticed another interesting tower.

I decided to come closer. Oh, it is the St. Olaf's church. Between 1549 and 1625 it was the tallest building in the world!

 The tower's viewing platform offers panoramic views over the Old Town. Unfortunatelly it is closed in winter so I just walked around it.



Then I took another road with nice old buildings.

 At one of the corners, I met a nice chimney-sweep.

 Obviously, you have to rub his nose to bring some Estonian luck back home (hopefully this does mean you have to bring back some Estonian weather).

Just outside the Old Town you will see the National Opera and Ballet house.

I did not unfortunatelly have time to enter. I was in a rush to find the post office before they close it (at 5 PM!) so that I can send some surprise postcards to my postcrossing friends. Uff... I made it.



Museum of Evolution in Warsaw

During my visit to the Palace of Culture and Science, I decided to visit one of the museum located there. I chose the Museum of the Evolution.

You should enter by the North side of the Palace (so-called Palace of Youth).

You can meet there many species, starting of course with dinosaurs. The most scaring were the Tarbosaures. A young one ...

... ad an old one (better look from the behind, you never know…).

Just to give you an idea of its size, you can have a closer look at its foot.

Giant reptiles are not the only fossils you can see there. The most important inhabitant of the museum is of course the ancestor of horses (not as handsome as me though).

The museum shows you of course where the evolution has ended. You can see birds (here a hawk attacking his pray)…

… reptiles …

… and mammals (like wild cats).

Talking of mammals – bears seem to be bigger than I thought.