Today I visited the one of Poland's loveliest art and artifact museums, the Czartoryski Museum. Full of armor, paintings, sculpture, all in a historic house right off the Rynek. The museum is home to one of the four Da Vinci Paintings currently on display is the world, Lady with an Ermine.
It was obviously the biggest draw of the museum- a school group nearly ran me over as the jogged through the rest of the museum to get to the painting, but other parts were definitely more interesting, like old royal housewares and weapons. If you have ever had the thought, "There is no way one can cover this object in gold and stud it with coral," the Poles will prove you wrong.
There were surprisingly (disturbingly?) few Polish paintings, but the few that were there were exquisite. I'm fond of one called The Mermaids. The other paintings were mostly from the Flemish and Dutch schools, with Italian sculptures, and a small but nonetheless impressive Egyptian section.
As for Lady with an Ermine, to quote a movie from the 90's I shouldn't like so much, it was underwhelming.
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