Germany, a country the size of Texas, has more than 500 galleries and 6,000 museums. Here are just three museums in the cities of Dresden, Stuttgart and Berlin.
Green Vault
Created by August the Strong (1670-1733), the historic Green Vault opened in the Royal Palace for the 800th birthday of Dresden. Using historic photographs, 100 restorers and sculptors, painters and craftsmen recreated ten splendid rooms.
Nearly 3,000 masterpieces, crafted by jewelers and goldsmiths, include objects of amber and ivory, vessels made of precious stones, bronze statuettes and objects made from South Seas coral and shells.
Some rooms, originally known as the Secret Store, were painted green, which accounts for the name Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault).
Weissenhof Siedlung
The Weissenhof Siedlung (the Weissenhof Settlement) museum is located in the Le Corbusier House, just outside Stuttgart. When it was founded in 1927, the Weissenhof Settlement was considered the most progressive architectural initiative of its time.
The Stuttgart museum was part of Germany's Neues Bauen Movement. In 33 houses with 63 apartments, 17 architects from Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Austria implemented their ideas of functionalism. Architects included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Hans Scharoun.
Visitors can see the internal design of the house, as it was in 1927 and a documentation of settlement's history, design and ideas.
DDR Museum
The DDR Museum, in Berlin, is located near the former Palace of the Republic. The rust colored glass building is at the end of Unter den Linden, the main street between Brandenburg Gate and the former Palace.
Most of the 10,000 artifacts in the DDR Museum were donated by locals from garages and spare rooms.
