Up close - really close - at the Prado

In January, the Prado Museum in Milan introduced a feature on Google Earth that allows you to click on one of a selection of paintings that have been photographed in super high resolution ("14,000 million pixels, 1,400 times more detailed than the image a 10 megapixel digital camera would take") and view them close up. Not that anything is a substitute for standing in front of the actual painting, but oh my! Seeing the details of Durer's self portrait down to the individual hairs that make up each curl is thrilling. And it is quite fun to get a virtual sense of the museum itself. Gets that travel bug itching.

Below is a short video of the making of the images and how the feature looks in Google Earth (for a larger image, watch it here). 

To find out how to visit the Prado in Google Earth click here.