Today

Old and new are echoed in the outstanding museums and collections of Germany's Magic Cities.

The nine member alliance has hundreds of museums offering visitors eye-popping cultural experiences. Germany and the Magic Cities, including Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hannover, Munich and Stuttgart, come alive with art, sculpture, and rare treasures ranging from Greco-Roman to the most avante-garde.

The Museum Island is Berlin's Grand Dame of the museum world comprising over 175 museums and almost just as many galleries. The Museum Island's unique cultural legacy marries five important museum buildings on the river Spree - the Pergamon Museum, the Old Museum, the New Museum, the Old National Gallery and the newly renovated Bode Museum. Modernism is well represented in Berlin's New National Gallery, designed by Mies van der Rohe of Bauhaus fame, and features a collection of 20th century European paintings and sculptures. Starting June 1 this year, the New National Gallery will have over 130 French impressionist paintings on view until October 7.

Further up the Rhein, in Cologne, the Romano-Germanic Museum presents the city's archaeological heritage, from prehistory through to the early Middle Ages. The museum's most famous works include the Roman mosaic, the world's largest collection of Roman glasses, and a collection of Roman and early medieval jewelry.

For a completely different and contemporary genre, visitors can go to the Artothek. Here art lovers can borrow contemporary art for up to ten weeks and experience the quality and message of a special art piece at home. It is also a venue for exhibitions devoted to local and international artists and provides information on the Cologne art scene.

In Germany's eastern region, Dresden reigns over the River Elbe and is home to one of Europe's most magnificent princely treasure chambers. Prince August the Strong built the Green Vault in the late 1700s and the recently re-opened collection contains masterpieces by leading jewelers and goldsmiths, plus objets d'art in amber and ivory, jeweled vessels and priceless bronze statuettes. Right across the square in the Zwinger Museum, New Yorker Peter Marino gave the priceless porcelain a completely new look with his lush, newly renovated quarters for the famous collection.

For over 30 years, the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf has fascinated visitors with its prefabricated concrete structure and generously dimensioned exhibition halls which also attract well-known and new artists. The newest 'KIT' (Kunst im Tunnel) on the block' is the Düsseldorf art tunnel, literally under the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, where up and coming young artists display their works. Within the first 14 days after its opening this February, over 7,000 visitors came to see the artistic works in the KIT.

On the banks of the River Main, Frankfurt's Städel Institute of Art holds court along with 13 other museums along the Main’s embankment. The museum has an impressive collection of European masterpieces dating from the early 14th century. In stark contrast to the Städel is the new Dialog Museum where not one collection is visible to the naked eye. Visitors to this special museum can only experience scents and smells, winds and drafts, temperatures, tones and textures, led through the dark museum by blind tour guides.

The highlight of the cultural calendar in Germany's northern city of Hamburg is the opening of the Ballinstadt Emigration Museum on July 4 this year. Exactly one hundred years after Albert Ballin completed the 'emigrant halls' for European travellers on the Elbe River's Veddel, a part of this "Emigrant City" will emerge again at the historical place. A special feature is the integration of the research project 'Link to your roots', a database that displays all passenger lists between 1850 and 1934.

In Hannover, the Sprengel Museum is one of Germany's major centers of 20th century art. Expressionist works, including those by Picasso, Klee and Beckmann, and extensive collections of prints by Chagall, Feininger and Toulouse-Lautrec adorn the museum's walls. Hallmarks of Hannover are the Nana figures by Niki de Saint Phalle. The bulbous, multi-colored statues provoked more than a little discussion when they were first created in the 1970s. A further installation called "the grotto" designed by Hannover's honorary citizen is located in the Royal Gardens of Herrenhausen.

The three Pinakothek Museums form a unique triumvirate in Munich with art from different periods. The Pinakothek der Moderne brings modern and contemporary art together under one roof. The Neue Pinakothek houses a collection of works from the late 18th to the early 20th century and the oldest of the three Pinakotheks, the Alte Pinakothek, exhibits the works of artists from the Middle Ages to late Baroque. At Munich's new Jewish Museum, which opened this March on St.- Jakobs-Platz, visitors can experience a world of insights into Jewish life and culture.

Stuttgart may be famous for its cars but not just...the city's Picasso collection in the New State Gallery documents all of the artist's creative periods from the Blue Period up to the 1960s, showing selected works such as the famous paintings, "Family of Saltimbanques", "Mother and Child" and "Crouching Woman". Art of a different kind is on display in the new Mercedes Benz Museum. The exhibition of the largest automotive museum in the world covers 100 years of motoring history, including the first car, old Silver Arrows and a limousine that belonged to a Japanese emperor.