Recently in Germany Category

Dusseldorf is an old city, but some of the residents at one of its finest museums predate it by a few thousand years. Located in the Neander Valley, where the original Neanderthal Man was discovered in 1856, the Neanderthal Museum is one of the only museums in the world dedicated exclusively to these early ancestors of modern humans, and its collection of fossils, artifacts, and the earliest forms of written communication is unsurpassed. With extensive exhibits detailing the lives, migration habits, and challenges facing neanderthals - who first appeared on earth 60,000 years ago - the museum gives visitors a good reminder of just how far back human history stretches. Guided tours of the museum are available, and there's even a Stone Age Workshop designed to teach 21st century humans what it was like to eke out a living in prehistoric Germany. You'll be making stone tools in no time. The Neanderthal Museum is convenient to several Starwood hotels, including the Four Points by Sheraton Central Dusseldorf.

[image via heise.de]

Boy, does that woman looks amazing doing housework! Her hair is sculpted into a neat 1920s bob, and her red pointy shoes match the chiffon mantle draped over that dazzling gold lamé outfit. The image looks like it came straight off the cover of Vogue, but in actuality, it is merely an advertisement for an AEG appliance. And it joins a collection of posters that combine "sensuous aesthetics" with "ready-to-use technology" in the exhibition "Completely a Lady, but Nevertheless a Housewife," at Hanover's Museum of Energy History.

This unique exhibition is part of the city-wide initiative "Hanover Goes Fashion." A total of ten shows that focus in one way or another on clothing and style run throughout the fall and winter as part of the event. Some highlights include an exhibition on film costumes at the Theater Museum, which features outfits worn by Marlene Dietrich, Kim Novak, David Bowie and other superstars; a show at the Wilhelm-Busch-Museum, which showcases extravagance in fashion illustrations; and the first show of artwork by fashion designer Helmut Lang, at the Kestner Society.

I love it when a city celebrates fashion. Be sure to bring along all of your best clothes, and after you've explored every single one of Hanover's fashion exhibitions, order a glass of champagne at Harry's New York Bar in the Sheraton Pelikan Hotel Hanover, and feel like a true fashionista.

Don't get the wrong idea about Dresden's Deutsches Hygiene-Museum based on its name. It's not a museum dedicated to the importance of brushing your teeth and changing your underwear every day. Instead, it's a fascinating study of the human body with a range of interactive exhibits designed to teach you the inner workings of the body and help you understand the complex systems that make you function. The Transparent Man, for example, features an anatomically accurate recreation of a human body with transparent glass skin that enables visitors to see the skeleton, circulatory system, and major organs of an adult human. Displays dedicated to eating and drinking, thinking and learning, and the art of coordination similarly shed light on these most basic yet little-understood facets of life. And, in a nod to contemporary priorities, a retrospective on beauty, skin, and hair serves to define the relationship between the body and the environment through sculptures, illustrations, and interactive exhibits. The museum is housed in a historical 1930 museum building located on the edge of the Great Garden, a baroque style park in central Dresden just minutes from the Westin Bellevue, Dresden.