Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
Zeche Zollverein in Essen was once one of the world’s largest and most advanced hard-coal mines. Together with its enormous coking plant, it formed a highly efficient industrial complex where coal was extracted, processed and converted into coke for the steel industry. Its striking winding tower, steel framework and red-brick buildings make it an outstanding example of modern industrial architecture.
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The Red Dot Design Museum in Essen is one of Europe’s most distinctive design museums, housed within the former boiler house of the Zeche Zollverein coal mine, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Rather than focusing on fine art or historical artefacts, it showcases contemporary industrial and product design from around the world. The museum presents everyday objects – everything from household appliances and furniture to bicycles, electronics, and even small aircraft – chosen for their outstanding design quality.
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The Ruhrmuseum in Essen is the regional museum of the Ruhr area, housed in the former coal-washing plant of the Zeche Zollverein colliery. Rather than being a conventional industrial museum, it presents the entire natural and cultural history of one of Europe’s largest conurbations, from the formation of coal hundreds of millions of years ago to the present-day transformation into a modern metropolitan region.
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The Bucerius Kunst Forum is a compact international exhibition centre in the heart of Hamburg, situated at Alter Wall opposite the Rathaus courtyard. Rather than maintaining a permanent collection, it presents around four carefully curated exhibitions each year, bringing together works from museums and private collections around a particular artist, theme or period. Its purpose is to place familiar works in fresh contexts and to reveal connections between different eras and artistic disciplines.
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The Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden was founded in 1912 on the initiative of Karl August Lingner, a local industrialist and manufacturer of the mouthwash Odol. Its purpose was to make scientific knowledge about the human body, personal health and preventive medicine accessible to ordinary people. The present building, designed by Wilhelm Kreis in a monumental yet modern style, was completed for the Second International Hygiene Exhibition in 1930. It was badly damaged during the bombing of Dresden in 1945 and later rebuilt; after German reunification, the museum was fundamentally reoriented as a museum about human experience.
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The Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden is one of Europe’s great treasure chambers, created for August der Starke in the early 18th century as a highly theatrical display of power, taste and wealth. It began as the elector’s private collection and was then expanded into a public showpiece, making it one of the oldest museum-like collections on the continent.
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The Verkehrsmuseum in Dresden is one of the city’s most distinctive museums, housed in the historic Johanneum by the Neumarkt. Its roots go back to 1877, when the collection that later became the Saxon Railway Museum first began, while the museum itself was founded in 1952 and opened to the public in its present setting in the 1950s.
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The Südtiroler Archäologiemuseum in Bolzano is the natural home of Ötzi, the world-famous ice mummy, and the visit feels very much like stepping into a carefully preserved chapter of Alpine prehistory. The museum is set in the historic centre of the city and dedicates several floors to the man from the ice, his world, and the extraordinary story behind his survival.
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The Parco Archeologico di Baratti e Populonia is one of the most evocative places on the Tuscan coast, because it combines Etruscan history with a striking sea-and-hills landscape. Populonia was the only Etruscan city built directly on the sea, and it became important thanks to ironworking and trade linked to the nearby Elba ore deposits.
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The Museo Subterraneo and Museo della Miniera in Massa Marittima are compact, atmospheric museums that recreate the experience of working underground and tell the long story of mining in the Colline Metallifere.
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