With one of the world’s finest collections of the 12th to 19th century European art, including Spanish, Italian and Dutch masters, Madrid’s Museo del Prado is a veritable treasure trove for an art lover.

One of its pieces de resistances (translation: a prized piece) is Diego Velazquez’s Las Meninas (Maids of Honor), painted in 1656 in a Baroque style, an opulent and effusive art form popular in Europe at that time.

The painting’s painstaking detail is worth seeing, and now you can have an up-close-and-personal glimpse of the masterpiece without leaving your home.

No, we are not talking about a “beam me up, Scotty” teleportation experiment. In fact, the only science at work here is Google Earth, a virtual globe, map and geographic information program that is easily accessible to any computer user (www.google.com/intl/en/landing/prado).

This cool feature allows you to see not only Las Meninas, but also 13 other of Prado’s masterpieces painted by Goya, Bosch, Rubens, Titian, El Greco and Rembrandt.

With a resolution of 14,000 megapixels – 1,400 times more than a photo taken with a standard 10 megapixel camera – Google Earth’s technology makes it possible to get closer to the paintings and get a more detailed view than you’d be able to in the museum. You can actually see the brushstrokes and other details invisible to a naked eye.

Of course, nothing can replace the sheer pleasure of seeing a masterpiece in a museum or an art gallery in person. That’s because no technology can convey a painting’s real colors, tones, luminosity, and that ethereal quality called the “soul.”

But if a visit to Madrid is not on your to-do list, you can still enjoy a night (or a day, for that matter) in a world-class museum and explore some truly unique masterpieces.

Think about it this way: if you can’t go to where the art is, make the art come to you! 8s7axv5tyz

In the political arena, the two nations have been bitter enemies since the 1960s, but a great writer’s enduring legacy has been uniting Cubans and Americans together in a peaceful and friendly endeavor.
Even 48 years after his death (in July 1961), Ernest Hemingway is doing more to improve the relations between the two countries than any politician has in the past four decades.

This blog, however, is not about politics. It is about the power of love. Not necessarily the romantic, happily-ever-after love, but the kind that can overcome adversity and build bridges even over the roughest waters.

And that is where Hemingway comes in.

Although the author maintained a home in Ketchum, ID until the day he died (and he actually did die there), he had also spent 20 last years of his life on the outskirts of Havana, in a big limestone villa called “Finca Vigia” (Lookout Farm). That’s where he did most of his writing, including “For Whom the Bell Tolls’’ and “The Old Man and the Sea,’’ for which he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.

After Hemingway’s death, the 19th century estate, with its lush tropical shrubs, banana trees and vast gardens, fell into disrepair. It could have remained in its dilapidated condition to this day, if people on both sides of the Florida Straits had not mobilized – despite the Bush administration’s ban on business transactions between the two countries – to restore the author’s home as a literary shrine.

That’s because one fact transcends political divisions: Americans love Hemingway. So do Cubans.

It was this love of Hemingway’s works and the heroic characters he immortalized in his books that prompted the Boston MA-based Finca Vigia Foundation www.hemingwaypreservationfoundation.org to work hand-in-hand with the Cuban government to preserve Hemingway’s home and timeless legacy.

Castro’s government has provided the financial and material resources to renovate the one-story stucco villa; from the U.S. side, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has contributed its know-how in historical restoration.

An offshoot of this project is a Hemingway archive, opened to public earlier this year in Havana. The unprecedented electronic database, a joint operation of Cuba’s Heritage Council and the U.S. Social Science Research Council, includes such gems as the unpublished epilogue to “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Thousands of documents have already been restored, and microfilm copies recently arrived at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, to become part of The Hemingway Collection.

As President Obama readies to open a dialogue with Cuba, he should draw inspiration from this example and not forget that it is through cooperation, not conflict, that enemies can become lifelong friends.
Let’s honor Hemingway’s memory by calling this bold cross-border initiative to preserve his home and works “A Farewell to Arms.”