Tag Archives: Europe

Sep7

Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium – Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique)

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Thursday, 01-Aug-2024

You know, I’m starting to think that I enjoy seeing art museums.

I know, I know, it’s a crazy hypothesis, but hear me out. I went to another one! In Brussels this time!


Seriously though, I really have enjoyed all the art museums that I’ve been able to explore on this grand adventure. I’ve loved seeing the amazing scenery, the expressions of culture, and slowly seeing the connections between pieces and places… I mean, when I was in Warsaw and saw a piece about the same war that I’d just seen in Stockholm, but from the other side of the conflict?

Yeah, it was really cool.


Brussels was no different – the art museum was amazing, and fully recommended. It’s actually split into multiple galleries, which meant that I was able to focus my attention a bit on continuing my tradition of seeing awesome old art and beautiful landscapes with pretty lighting.

Yay landscapes and lighting!

I… uhh… don’t know what else to write here. I like art museums. I hope you like my photos of paintings of landscapes?


Jul10

Cathedral Square and Gedimino kalnas in Vilnius

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Sunday, 16-June-2024

My exploration of Vilnius started in Cathedral Square – which shouldn’t be a surprise, since I was staying at the Cathedral Square hotel. Efficient, right? Past-me really did do a great job at picking out places to stay, and detailing all the info for traveling… Definitely thankful to that guy. Great dude.

Anyways.

I headed out from my hotel, crossed the street, and sort of just stopped to stare for a little bit.


Cathedral Square is gorgeous. Seriously – it’s straight out of Rome, or Florence, or some ancient Greco-Roman saga. A huge marble square stretched out ahead of me, with a massive belltower and equally massive cathedral dominating the space… but still leaving room for a ton of open area for the slowly gathering people, and the slightly-weird statue off to the far side.

Behind, Gedimino Castle stood on a massive hill, overlooking it all.


I was still feeling a little weak on my feet, only a few days recovered from the ill-advised takeout, but I’ve always held that getting some good physical activity helps my body throw off the lethargy and miasma of being sick. Looking up, past the marble expanse and toward the castle up on the huge hill, I saw a great opportunity to get that physical activity going.

I… made it up. I did, in fact, make it up to to the top. It wasn’t quick, and it wasn’t easy, but it was successful. We’ll stick to that.



From the top, I not only got a chance to catch my breath… but also amazing views of the city. I stared out across the stunning landscape, picked out a few interesting places that I wanted to see closer up, and even spent a few moments watching some reenactors fencing down in the nearby square.

And then?

Back down the way I came, off to continued exploration!

May21

The National Museum in Nuuk

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Friday, 03-May-2024

I love learning about the history of countries. Their people, the land the people live on, and how the two connect… it’s so interesting, especially when considered in context to the greater world around us all.

The National Museum in Nuuk is small, but it has a really cool assortment of history of the island (Yes, Greenland is the largest Island in the world, since Australia is technically a continent). From the first Inuit to arrive in ~2,500 BCE, to a few hundred years without any human inhabitation between ~0 CE and 700 CE, to the modern Greenlanders who call the island home. Learning how they survived using driftwood, as there are basically no trees in Greenland, and how they’d hunt and travel across the ice… it really is amazing learning about how resilient humanity can be.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves – enjoy, and many thanks to my excellent camera for being able to capture all the wording of the signs!