Sights to See: Porcelain Collection, Dresden, Germany

This is the largest collection of ceramics in the world. Displays include many fine pieces produced by Dresden’s porcelain factories since the first was founded in 1708. An extensive collection of Meissen includes exquisite hand-painted birds, including Jaybirds and Wax Wings, and many displays are set against windows through which you can additionally view the palace grounds outside. Chinese and Japanese pieces are also in the collection. A Glockenspiel above the entrance features a carillon with 40 Meissen porcelain bells that survived the World War II bombing raids.

Porcelain Collection, at the The Zwinger.

image c2010 Carole Terwilliger Meyers

Sights to See: The Asisi Panometer, Leipzig, Germany

Created by artist Yadegar Asisi, this innovative 360-degree panorama exhibition is tucked inside a 19th-century cylindrical gas storage building and is the world’s largest. The picture measures approximately 88½-feet/27 meters high and more than 328 feet/100 meters long. Previous themes have been “Mt. Everest” and “Ancient Rome.” The current “Amazonia” includes colorful scenes in Brazil’s rainforest that transform from day through night. When the exhibition ends, one ton of canvas comes down from the walls and is burned. According to Asisi, “It is gone like a theater piece or a concert.”

The Asisi Panometer  Richard-Lehmann-Strasse 114, +49 (0)341 35 55 34-0. Tu-F 9-7, Sat-Sun 10-8. E10. 

Great Sleeps: World's Weirdest Hotels

Sleep in a sphere or . . .

http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2010/11/10/AR2010111005589.html?wpisrc=newsletter

Things to Do: Christmas markets around the world

Here are some fabulous Christmas markets to dream about visiting.

http://www.frommers.com/slideshow/?group=420

Photo by LH DD Wifö/Wikimedia Commons.

Things to Do: a holiday greeting from The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies

Next time you're in Palm Springs check out this revue in which all the performers are age 55 and older.





also see
http://caughtontheweb.blogspot.com/search/label/Palm%20Springs

Good Eats: Quchnia, Berlin, Germany

Relax here in comfy leather chairs with a view of the Deutscher Dom right across the street. This very cozy coffee house also has a menu of hot chocolates—choose your candy bar flavor (perhaps cashew-caramel) and then just drop it in frothy hot milk and stir.

Quchnia  Markgrafenstrasse 35, in the Gendarmenmarkt, 030-206 09 286.

image c2010 Carole Terwilliger Meyers