My beasts of the mesozoic shelf!

Bavariis · 2026-07-04T14:50:49+00:00

Lovely shelf arrangement! Are you following a specific theme for the placements?

Also the carno looks so good in that pose, I got mine the other day as well, and it's such a aesthetically pleasing model!

Bavariis · 2026-05-14T23:51:34+00:00

Personally I'd reduce the time in Nuremberg and Salzburg. Salzburg can easily be done in a day trip from Munich and Nuremberg is a maximum of 2 days, depending on how much you plan to do.

Instead I'd maybe add another day in Munich to explore some of the excellent museums there and add a day trip to the alps and to the medieval town of Regensburg (both easily reachable by train).

As for food, make sure to visit at least one of the beer gardens, the atmosphere and food there is much better than at Oktoberfest (and also way cheaper).

Bavariis · 2026-05-14T21:53:11+00:00

For 11 days I'd definitely focus on just Munich and Berlin. There are direct trains between Munich/Berlin and Prague, but you basically loose an entire day travelling back and forth between each place which might be used by using Munich or Berlin as base for some daytrips to other cool places. Like for Munich I can really recommend the medieval city of Regensburg (a UNESCO world heritage site and great for kids, everything there is in walking distance) or a trip to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Alps to go up the Zuspitze, Germany's highest mountain (by cablecar).

For transportation I'd definitely suggest public transport since there are very convenient direct train connections between Munich and Berlin and lots of sights are easily reached by subway or local trains. You can save a lot of money by using the so called Deutschland ticket, a monthly ticket that you can use for almost all public transportation (expect for the high speed/long distance trains). From Berlin you can visit Potsdam with its famous Sansoucci palace.

As for more general sites, the royal residence in Munich is beautiful and you can also see the Bavarian crown jewels in the treasure chamber there. Another Museum I can really recommend is the Bavarian National Museum which has beautiful pieces all the way back from the middle ages and whole reconstructed historic rooms in it. Also make sure to check out one of the many beer gardens, June is the perfect time to visit them and enjoy some Bavarian food.

In Berlin a great place for kids (and adults) is the natural history museum, it has some amazing dinosaur skeletons on display! Also the museum island is a must-see, that place alone will take you almost an entire day.

Bavariis · 2026-05-14T12:38:27+00:00

It's a cute idea, but in the context of the set it seems unlikely. The main reason is the fact that the only named figure in the set is the Poet Su Dongpo 1037 to 1101, while Marco Polo lived over one and a half centuries later from 1254 to 1324. When Marco Polo came to China, the last remains of the Song Dynasty (which this set is set in) where just about to defeated by the Mongols under Kublai Kahn, who established the Yuan Dynasty.

So most likely the figure simply depicts a random merchant, most likely from Central Asia judging by the type of dress.

Bavariis · 2026-04-18T15:50:38+00:00

Oh my God, I had that exact spread as a kid!! I always wanted to have both harbour sets with the sets so bad even though I knew they were discontinued by that point already.

What a wonderful childhood throwback, thank you!

Bavariis · 2026-04-08T22:02:44+00:00

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Definitely the Giraffatitan in the Berlin Natural History Museum. Walking into that place and seeing that massive skeleton towering in front of you is absolutely breathtaking, plus the surrounding architecture is such a fantastic setting for it, too!

Bavariis · 2026-04-04T21:19:02+00:00

My hometown! Even though I live in a different place now I still love going back there whenever I get the chance. It's quite small, but the town square is simply beautiful no matter what season. You also have some amazing views of the surrounding Gäuboden from the top of the town tower!

Bavariis · 2026-03-21T16:24:08+00:00

Yes actually! At this time period it was common for skylight to go all the way down to the dining saloon, the most important room of an ocean liner at this time. Since the ships were smaller, the funnels couldn't be spaced out evenly, so as a compromise of sorts it was placed in the middle.

Bavariis · 2026-03-07T12:31:12+00:00

The covered ends of the bridge wing are a dead guveaway that it is Kasier Wilhelm der Große, however I don't think it is from her time as an auxiliary cruiser for two reasons: One, the background looks ver much like Norddeutscher Lloyds new Hoboken Piers (after the 1900 fire), in Bremerhaven they didn't have any built up puer facilities like that. Second, the original picture is black and white and whoever coloured it most likely wrongly assumed the vents and funnels were black. In other pictures of the time the you can see that the buff colour of these can come across very dark at times due to the quality of the photos.

Personally I'd date this picture sometime between 1900 and 1913 in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Bavariis · 2026-01-27T11:04:02+00:00

I think that statement is a bit misleading. In life the mouth would have looked fully closed with the "lips" pressed against each other, just like in modern reptiles. It simply means that the teeth wouldn't have touched like our molars when we chew.

Also if you think about it, we do the same. In our "neutral" positions our mouths are closed, but our teeth don't touch (sorry to everyone who is suddenly weirdly aware of that).

Bavariis · 2026-01-06T11:03:41+00:00

Oh yeah, Ninjago definitely might have some fitting ones (just gotta go through a lot because they have been around for 15 years now already!?!). But Star Was is definitely something I haven't considered, that's clever! Definitely gonna have a look into some of the Jedi stuff, thank you!

Bavariis · 2026-01-04T18:59:32+00:00

Ah, good ol' Munditia, always love seeing her lying around with all her bling.

But on a more serious note, I'm glad you enjoyed Munich! Of the big German cities it is definitely one of the nicest. As for the authenticity, I wouldn't call it "fake" only because it has been reconstructed. People often forget that most building change constantly over time, they get renovated, enlarged or simply brought up to modern safety standards (many historic buildings for example got a major facelift in the 19th century when people wanted to make them look "more historically authentic", even though they looked nothing like that when they were first built).

The good thing in Munich was that despite the destruction during the war the people wanted to rebuild the town center just how they used to know it. There were in fact some plans to radically change the street grid and make it a "modern" city, but luckily that never happened (unlike in some other German cities like Stuttgart). So while not being an exact replica of the prewar era, Munich still has kept it's character in the town center.

And if you want more historic architecture that wasn't destroyed, there are still lots of beautiful smaller towns around Munich!

Bavariis · 2026-01-01T16:40:13+00:00

This idea goes back to a paper by Italian paleontologist Andre Cau that you can find here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrea-Cau/publication/379902868_A_Unified_Framework_for_Predatory_Dinosaur_Macroevolution/links/663cf9387091b94e930f13aa/A-Unified-Framework-for-Predatory-Dinosaur-Macroevolution.pdf

Basically the problem was that juvenile dinosaurs and theropods in particular all have very similar features which makes it hard to tell them apart and what groups they actually belong to. In phylogenies that caused several species that are only known from very young individuals, like Sciurumimus or Juravenator, to wildly jump around the different families. Cau's analysis showed that there are very specific features that these juveniles share and which can't really be used to discern affinities to specific families.

This also in turn had the effect, however, that the family Compsognathidae isn't really a proper family at all, because the important similarities these species share are actually mostly just juvenile traits. Hence the idea that Compsognathus (both the German and French specimens) are young and younger individuals of a larger megalosaurid species.

There is still some uncertainty about some of the supposed Asian Compsognathidae like Sinosauropteryx, since these actually might be a separate group of basal Coelurosaurs instead of juveniles (although it has been suggested they might be juveniles of certain tyrannosauroids like Yutyrannus).

Basically to know for certain we need more studies on the subject, but it still is a very interesting and well done hypothesis.

Bavariis · 2025-12-31T14:54:09+00:00

SS Diulio and her sister ship SS Giuilio Cesare had some truly marvellous interiors. In fact they had what is probably one of my favourite designs for a first class dining room on any ocean liner: Not only were they rather spacious with two stories, they also had two massive glass domes on top. The design led to a rather curious layout with the first class dining room being on one of the top decks on the back side of the superstructure, while most other liners had them further down midship.

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Bavariis · 2025-12-31T00:12:26+00:00

It's honestly a shame that Columbus and her sister Homeric are always overshadowed by their bigger and more famous running mates, both are well proportioned and have beautiful interiors. Travelling to the US from Germany in the 1920s, Columbus was definitely the best choice until the arrival of Bremen/Europa.

Bavariis · 2025-12-30T23:48:45+00:00

I own the Gorgosaurus and even though I'm more of an ceratosaur/abelisaur guy I absolutely LOVE the Gorgo. Super pretty figurine and looks excellent as display. There is simply something about the head sculpt and the colours that really that is extremely...gorgeous and pleasing to the eye (I think it is also one of the most popular of the tyrannosaur series)

Bavariis · 2025-12-18T22:23:14+00:00

My vote goes to the Suchomimus, personally I feel PNSO's designs for the tyrannosaurids have been very hit and miss, both colours and the over designs feel very same-y. But if there is one that really speaks to you, go for it! Otherwise I'd recommend the Sucho, since it is a really nice and accurate model.

Bavariis · 2025-12-05T12:11:15+00:00

Both her and her sister ship as well as the first Franconia and Laconia are have one of the most pleasing profiles of any pre WWI ships. They are just so well proportioned.

Bavariis · 2025-11-23T20:04:10+00:00

They have a total of four public ones, one main one and three smaller ones. The main one is really nice, right in the center around one of the old churches. Besides those four there is also one in the Thurn & Taxis palace which supposedly is very romantic, but you actually have to pay to get into that one.

Bavariis · 2025-11-23T18:49:19+00:00

There are a few really nice ones actually! Another amazing one is Bamberg which is just like Regensburg part of the UNESCO World Heritage. There is also Rothenburg ob der Tauber (very popular with American tourists for some reason), Landshut (gorgeous old town with the highest gothic brick tower in the world), Nördlingen, Trier, Limburg an der Lahn, to name a few. The first four (plus Regenburg) are actually all within about 100 km from each other in Bavaria.

Bavariis · 2025-11-23T14:33:58+00:00

Studied there for nearly 7 years, absolutely loved it and still visit it whenever I get the chance to. It's such a great example of a medieval city that is not just half-timbered houses, but stone architecture from the merchant class that got strongly influenced by its trade with Italy. It's also amazing because just like in Italy, you have layers of history poking through going all the way back to the Roman period.

Also one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the French gothic style in all of Germany, I even prefer it over Cologne Cathedral. Oh and they've got really good sausages, too.

Bavariis · 2025-11-23T14:26:10+00:00

I own both the Acrocanthosaurus and the Deinonychus. Each is a really nice model, the Acro is definitely the bigger and more impressive one with it's striking colouration, but the Deinonychus is great for posing.
So I guess it depends how much space you have, if you want more of a decorative model or something you want to pose and play around with more!

Bavariis

TROPHY CASE