If you have a sweet tooth, then you need to visit this place.
Here you will find "three in one": the museum, cafe and shop.
In the museum you can see the marzipan figures of human height, castles and whole scenes, which are made of marzipan.
You can drink a cup of aromatic coffee with a marzipan cake in cafe.
And in the shop you will find a large variety of marzipan candies.

www.niederegger.de/
Breite Straße 89, 23552 Lübeck, Germany
+49 451/5301
Google map: bit.ly/AgX9IN

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One of my favourite places to visit – on weekends or a night after work – is the TIFF Bell
Lightbox, an avant-garde cultural centre and home to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Opened in 2010, it houses a cinema complex, galleries, workshops, two restaurants, and a roof-top terrace.
With different events every day of the week, TIFF offers screenings, lectures, festivals, great food, special exhibits and, of course, great cinema. There are 5 public cinemas with insulated sound space and the first in North America to show 16 mm, 35 mm and 70 mm film in addition to digital movies.
I love brunching at LUMA restaurant. With attentive service and great food, this is the perfect spot for a small or large group. LUMA also has a great dinner and cocktail menu. The Canteen restaurant, located on the ground floor, is a great spot for more casual and quick dining.
My favourite films to watch are those offered by the Contemporary World Cinema programme, where you can see some of the best films from around the world, many of which are unlikely to be widely released.
Ever since its opening last year, the space has featured outstanding exhibits, from Tim Burton to Federico Fellini and now the Grace Kelly exhibit.

www.tiff.net
350 King Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5
+1 416 968 3456
Google map: bit.ly/ycH4AC

* Giulia is our Been there local for Toronto. You can see her profile here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/places/canada/toronto/index.jsp and follow her tips here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/travellers/GiuliaFalsetti

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For a fun London experience, check out the late night adult-only openings of the London Science Museum on the last Wednesday of every month. With 'no kids between you and the big red button' you can refresh forgotten science knowledge by checking out the rocket show (where the presenter proves he can do adult as well as childish humour), doing a spot of speed-dating, and contemplating the properties of sound while boogieing away at the silent disco. Best of all, it's completely free.

www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/events/events_for_adults/Lates.aspx
Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD
+44(0)870 870 4868
Google map: bit.ly/AjDdSY

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Keep little ones and teenagers intrigued on a shoestring budget with a day trip to the Natural History Museum. The impressive cathedral-like structure plays host to one of the largest natural history collections in the world.
The collection includes everything from microscopic slides to mammoth skeletons, a dinosaur gallery to Darwin’s work on natural selection and an enormous life-size model of a blue whale.
The National History Museum also offers special exhibitions, an outdoor ice skating rink (in winter) and a wildlife garden. Admission to the permanent collection is free.

www.nhm.ac.uk/
Cromwell Road London, United Kingdom SW7 5BD
+44(0)20 7942 5000
Google map: bit.ly/yAK0x7

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The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons is a lot more fun that its name might suggest. It contains more that 3,500 specimens, mainly collected in the 18th century by John Hunter, the anatomist.
There is a vast array of pickled body parts, the skeleton of a 7’ 7” ‘Irish giant’, the tooth of an extinct giant sloth, and a slightly grisly display of pickled foetuses. More recent additions include Churchill’s dentures.
There is also the opportunity to try your hand at simulated keyhole surgery, and watch footage of brain surgery. Educational and fun at the same time!

www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums
35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3PE
+44 (0) 20 7405 3474
Google map: bit.ly/wEx9wO

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Hidden behind the imposing National Museum, the Historical Museum in Sarajevo is a deeply moving, eye opening and inspiring experience. Documenting the atrocities of the Bosnian war with a touchingly impartial pathos, the simple yet affecting exhibition stopped me in my tracks and the hours spent at the museum will stay with me. For someone born in 1990, the images, artefacts and written accounts of the conflict brought home the reality that these horrors occurred within my lifetime. When this is combined with the ubiquitous scars of war which cover the country, the humility and compassion of the Bosnian people in the aftermath of their recent tragic history is all the more striking. Among young people in the UK not enough is known about this conflict and I can think of no more essential starting point than the Historical Museum in Sarajevo.

www.muzej.ba/
Zmaja od Bosne 5, 71 000, Sarajevo
+387 33 226 098

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Munnar, Kerala’s best known hill station, is set in a land of undulating hills blanketed by tea estates. But beware, in this dreamy landscape death lurks at every turn.
High up in the valley, under the cool shade of a cardamom plantation, I asked the guide if we could take a stroll into the rain forest. Nitish swiveled his eyes, carefully avoiding mine.
“Madam, there were wild elephants here yesterday.”
In the white heat of the tea estates women sliced fragile new shoots from the tips of shrubs, their razor-sharp shears specially adapted to catch the crop with each snip. Others heaved sacks as big as boulders onto a truck. A man sat in the shade, perfunctorily supervising the women’s work.
Wild elephants? Aren’t they one of the attractions here? I tried an encouraging smile, my excitement fading as he explained the danger.
“Angry elephants will charge and trample everything in their way, madam, including you.”
Stunted and pruned to within an inch of their lives, tea shrubs are packed tightly in manicured rows, like a green candlewick bedspread draped over the rumpled hillsides. Dotted around the slopes, shade-giving acacia trees perforate the swaddled fields. The women moved carefully between the bushes.
I glanced at the forest, now dripping with malevolence under its latticework of branches. Myna birds shrieked and glistening tropical flowers pierced the gloom. A shadow shifted in the darkness and a crazed string-puppet butterfly, the size of a bat, lurched out of the gloom.
Nitish, heartened by my hesitation, warned of foxes in these parts. I shrugged, Fantastic Mr Fox didn’t frighten me.
“If they are hungry they will attack you.”
Unlike the sly tricksters of childhood fairy tales, it seems Indian foxes are wild and ferocious, “like small Alsation dogs.” My naïve Jemima Puddle-Duck persistence faltered.
A muffled shriek from the tea fields stopped us dead in our tracks.
Nitish smiled as he went in for the kill, “also, madam, there are snakes.”
The next day we visited The Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company tea museum, where monochrome images of puny white men holding guns, each with a foot planted on a dead tiger, were hung in the corridors. We watched a short, and surprisingly interesting, film about the history of the area, then walked through the displays. It is a working museum, and you can walk through the whole process from the leaves arriving to buying your souvenir bag of tea at the end.
A sign on the wall told us that schools and crèche facilities are provided for its families by the local tea cooperative. Remembering yesterday’s scream, I asked a manager if labouring in the plantations could be dangerous.
“Certainly, our workers get bitten by the occasional snake, but we carry anti-venom and are able to treat bites immediately.”
He informed us that all visitors to India should learn how to identify poisonous snakes.
“If you are attacked you must tell the doctor which snake bit you, so the correct anti-venom can be administered.”
Now, I reckon I can recognise an angry cobra, but with over 270 species of snake in India I decided I should keep my camera handy. If avoidance tactics don’t work, the only way I’m going to be able to explain which would-be slithery assassin has bitten me is to take its photo. Smile please.

www.kdhptea.com/TeaMuseum.html
KDHP House, Munnar-685 612, Kerala
+91-4865 230561

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Not just for Napoleophiles (who will definetely think they've died and gone to heaven), this is set in a huge hilltop mansion with glorious views over Havana. Also boasts Havana's most charming tour guides and the field glass Napoleon used at Waterloo.

Calle San Miguel No. 1159 esq. a Ronda. Ciudad de La Habana
+53 7 8791412
Google map: bit.ly/w3FUwz

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Fantastic exhibition of beautiful artworks by Bill Reid in downtown Vancouver.
Bill Reid was an acclaimed Haida master goldsmith, carver, sculptor, writer and spokesman, and one of Canada's greatest artists.
His artwork ranges from exquisite gold and silver jewellery to full sized totem poles and ocean-going canoes carved from massive timbers. These pieces embody his evolving interpretation of his native heritage and how he extended the traditional artistic vocabulary to embrace modern ideas and forms. He played a pivotal role in reviving interest in native art forms among the younger generations of Canada's First Nations, and in presenting those arts to a wider world.
There is a small entrance fee for the museum but it is worth every penny to see such a great collection of Reid's work gathered together under one roof.

www.billreidgallery.ca
639 Hornby Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6C 2G3
+1 604 682 3455
Google map: bit.ly/z0j18u

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If you really want to understand London at war you need to visit the Churchill War Rooms. Seeing the intricate labyrinth of underground bedrooms and offices, and the maps marked with strategic plans really brings home how real the threat of invasion was. You feel the tension in the air. A large part of the museum also details the life of Winston Churchill and political life during the war. While this is interesting the best aspect of the museum is in sharing a space with one of the most iconic men of recent history.

www.iwm.org.uk/visits/churchill-war-rooms
Clive Steps, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AQ
Google map: bit.ly/rThsFi

* Sophie is our Been there local for London. You can view her profile here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/articles/london-local-sophie-mitchell-intro.jsp and follow her tips here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/travellers/SophieMItchell

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The eastern, Indian, moorish, whatever. Since the fascist tests on Tibet, it can all be, in a nut shell, trendy. So everybody can be inspired by the lifestyle, whether in the shopping center or in the museum, near Lisbon's founding castle outskirts and gothic monastery surroundings.

www.lojamuseuoriente.com
Avenida de Brasília, Doca de Alcântara, 1350-352 Lisbon, Portugal
+351 213 940 531
Google map: bit.ly/vEebs4

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The Royal Ontario Museum has millions of items on display in over 30 galleries and one of my favourites is the “Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth’s Treasures.” It is composed of the Gallery of Minerals, the Gallery of Gems and Gold and the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame Gallery.
The mining industry in Canada is extremely important, and it’s only fitting that a large part of the second floor is devoted to such exquisite treasures. The exhibits showcase wonderful specimens of minerals in a variety of colours and shapes, including fluorescent green. There are several cases filled with gold, diamonds, garnets, opals, and jade, as well as exquisite pieces of jewellery. Throughout the exhibits, there are about 40 interactive touch stations that provide in-depth information on several specimens. I can spend hours browsing here, admiring the beauty of so many pieces, all while learning so much about geology.

www.rom.on.ca/
100 Queens Park Toronto, ON M5S 2C6, Canada
+1 (416) 586 8000
Google map: bit.ly/sYw4d0

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Since its opening in 1969, this science museum has been attracting families, teens and adults.
The Centre has several hundred interactive exhibits, featuring everything in science and nature, including geology, astronomy, human anatomy, communication, Toronto’s only planetarium, and KidSpark, a play area designed specifically for kids aged eight and under.
Until November 30, there is a special exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop, with 20 scale physical models of his inventions, including a mechanical lion, a robot soldier and the self- propelling cart. Visitors can also interact with his famous paintings by zooming into details on the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. There are also interactive touch-screens to help you turn the pages of his notebooks, with sketches and 3D models leaping from the page.
The IMAX has some great screenings, too. Catch “Rocky Mountain Express”, where you take a steam train through the Canadian Rockies, learning about train travel while seeing spectacular mountain scenery and gorges along the way. Also on IMAX, “Under the Sea” where spectators visit the beautiful underground world of the Great Barrier Reef.
Finally, there are various food options, from snacks to beverages to full meals, ranging from fast food to healthy options.

www.ontariosciencecentre.ca
770 Don Mills Road, Toronto, Canada
+1 416 696 1000
Google map: bit.ly/tHQkNT

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After having lived in Seville for two years, I am a little embarrassed that there are many attractions I have yet to visit. This was the case of the Museo de Baile Flamenco (Museum of flamenco dance). I knew where it was and had wandered past peering in many a time when passing by with visitors. When I was invited to take a tour, I didn't know what to expect. I had a stereotypical prejudgement in mind: museums are boring and require a lot of reading and concentration.
I was wrong.
Before even stepping foot in the museum reception, you are already welcomed by faint flamenco rhythms and the sound 'pa-tah, pa-tah, pa-tah'. On the way to the museum (it's located on the 1st floor), you pass the light and airy patio where top-notch performances take place every evening. It was from here that the sounds of taconeo were being produced, although not in the form of a spectacular show on the centre stage, but basic steps from flamenco fledglings in the glass-paned dance studio. Visitors are encouraged to take a pew and observe, attempt to comprehend the complexity involved with mastering this art form, so that they are able to really appreciate how long it took the novice to perfect just one step when watching the professional show.
The museum itself is relatively new, and was inaugurated in 2006, born of the initiative of Cristina Hoyos, an acclaimed Sevillana flamenco dancer and actress, who has had a great influence on the rise of this artform. She wanted to bring flamenco dance closer to the world, to make people understand that it is one of the three fundamental pillars that support flamenco: the other two being cante (singing) and toque (guitar playing). Only last year, flamenco was declared as being of intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO, and Crisitina Hoyos and this wonderful museum may have had something to do with that! This is the only museum in the world, to date, to solely be dedicated to flamenco dance.
It provides a perfect introduction for any visitor to this magical world (or for Andalusian visitors to be reminded of its beginnings). Although I have attempted to describe the different flamenco palos in the past, I learnt from the tour that many stones were surely left unturned. The first floor of the Museo del Baile Flamenco uses a hands-on high tech approach to explaining the origins, (i.e., where castanets, hand or hip movements were from) and the variety of palos (flamenco styles), through videos and interactive screens, available in many languages (English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese and Japanese). Flamenco is an emotive dance, and depending on the palo different feelings can be portrayed: these videos perfectly demonstrate this with buzz words flashing up alongside. Furthermore, visitors can read more information, listen and watch using the touch-screen displays. This floor also describes how flamenco came into the spotlight, both in Spain and in the rest of the world. You can stand under the 'sound showers' and experience a sensory overload: hear flamenco melodies, see footage from years bygone - when flamenco started to take centre stage - and read famous flamenco quotes from flamenco-inspired works such as Carmen.
Another room puts flamenco costume in the spotlight, using interactive screens to explain where different items came from and how they were incorporated into dance. Last but not least on this floor, is a room consisting entirely of video walls, showing a performance choreographed specifically for the museum by Cristina Hoyos.
The museum also has an impressive photography and art collection, including images of Cristina Hoyo and her dance company, reminiscing of their ‘golden years’. Contemporary art works from up-and-coming artists, Spanish and international bring give the museum bring the art to the modern day. The exhibition rooms, as well as the well-preserved 18th century basement, are also used for percussion lessons and can be hired out for private events or conferences.
After discovering so much about the art of flamenco, it really made me appreciate the amazing live performance that same the evening. Four artists: two bailaores dancers (Lola Jaramillo and Jesús Herrera), a tocaor guitarist (Andrés Martínez) and a cantaor singer (Trini) took to the stage to bring to life all that was learnt from the museum. Here though, you could feel the flamenco and understand the emotions involved in the various palos. You could feel the vibration from the taconazos on the wooden tablao, and the swish of air as the train from Lola's traje swished inches past your face. Experience the joyfulness of bulerías and heart-felt wails of a saeta. I had seen many shows in free bars, the Bienal and touristy tabloas and I can guarantee that this show will remain present in my memory for much time to come. All of the performers stood out for me, but never had I seen a bailaora with such stage presence – maybe because I had never seen one master dancing with a mantoncillo and long-trained traje - it was astonishing.
This museum and show is a perfect introduction to flamenco for any visitor to Seville. It is located on C/ Manuel Rojas Marcos, 3, and is open 365 days a year from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Entrance to the museum is: Adults - €10, Students and over 65s - €8, and Sevillanos and children - €6.
Shows are
Sunday to Thursday (45 mins): Adults - €15, Students and over 65s - €12, and Sevillanos and children - €10
Friday and Saturday (60 mins): Adults - €23, Students and over 65s - €20, and Sevillanos and children - €12
Packages are available to enter the museum and see a show:
Sunday to Thursday: Adults - €20, Students and over 65s - €15, Sevillanos and children - €12
Friday and Saturday: Adults - €28, Students and over 65s - €25, Sevillanos and children - €20

For a guided tour of the museum in English, visit on Mondays or Thursdays at 5 p.m.

www.museoflamenco.com‎
C/ Manuel Rojas Marcos 3
+34.954.34.03.11
Google map: bit.ly/ujcnsi

* BecomingSevillana is our Been there local for Seville. You can read her profile here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/articles/seville-local-kim.jsp and follow her tips here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/travellers/BecomingSevillana.jsp
She also has her own blog: becomingsevillana.blogspot.com/

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Pushing open the door of this rickety townhouse you have become a child in a book, sneaking inside a mysterious attic. Your gaze fixes on piles of cardboard boxes, two enormous stuffed tigers and heaving wooden display cabinets as old as their contents.
There is a logic to the displays, but you notice that this is not applied rigidly. There are train sets, dolls, cowboys and Indians and piggy banks competing with model kitchens, tin soldiers and wind-up ladybirds. There’s wood and metal, but not so much plastic. Teddy bears can be found everywhere, along with wooden toys to climb on and plenty of corners to play hide and seek. Through a window you glimpse a workshop where dolls’ limbs and broken rocking horses hang, just waiting to be nursed back to life. Other children laugh and chatter away as they clamber on the exhibits, and the adults seek out their own childhood toys and rarer items such as a Noah’s ark, paper theatre or dolls houses behind glass. They’d say the only thing that’s missing is a coffee shop.
Then I stumble across André, the curator of the museum tucked in a room downstairs, working with a young apprentice. He says that as a father of six children, he found he was always packing and unpacking toys. The idea for a museum came automatically thirty years ago, and it has now been in its current location for 22 years. “It’s dusty, noisy and full of bric-a-brac”, he smiles. “But people still really like it.” The children will tell him that he has understood the interactivity part all right, unlike many other stuffier museums. “A toy has to be played with”, André says. Luckily it is easier to acquire toys that are a little worn, and that explains the 35,000 objects, the 700 or so teddy bears, the vaults underground and the crammed attic above. “It’s a lot of work”, says André of the constant tidying, unpacking and restoration, “but really it’s a pleasure.”
He’s even written a book about working at the museum, with a name strikingly similar to that of a famous film. Thinking about it, this place is the perfect setting for a film, if only the toys came alive after dark …

www.museedujouet.eu
Rue de l'Association/Verenigingstraat 24
1000 Brussels, Belgium
+32 (0)2 219 61 68
Metro: Madou or Botanique
Google map: bit.ly/vAouzO

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For national Czech history don't go to the National Museum at the top of Wenceslas Square. The building is beautiful but the collection has just been shut for at least four years for extensive and long-overdue updating.
Instead, go to the National Museum site at the Vitkov Memorial in Zizkov. This site is home to one of the biggest equestrian statues in the world and a very interesting exhibition about 20th century Czech history.
A steep climb to the top is rewarded by a great view over the city, from the roof-top viewing platform or the very good café.

www.nm.cz/
U Památníku 1900, 130 00 Praha 3
+420 222 781 676

November 2011 untill March 2012:
Monday–Wednesday: CLOSED
Thursday–Sunday: 10 AM–6 PM
Google map: bit.ly/vukUJR

* Helen is our Been there local for Prague. Her page is here: www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/articles/prague-local-helen-ford.jsp and she has her own blog here: czechingin.wordpress.com/

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Superb museum tracing the history of Lyon from the pre Roman era to the 7th century, primarily focusing on the Roman era. Contains numerous statues, Roman memorials, mosaics and pottery to name some of the exhibits.
The thing that really caught my eye was a death mask of a 10-year-old girl from nearly 2,000 years ago.
From the street outside, the building very much reflects its mid 1970s construction with the stark concrete. However inside the museum you slowly descend through five floors which makes it ideal for wheelchairs or those with difficulty with steps. [Lifts are on all 'floors'].
The museum is located next to two well preserved (and restored) Roman theatres dating back nearly 2,000 years. These host concerts in summer.

www.musee-gallo-romain.com/fourviere/accueil/index.html
17 rue Cléberg, 69005 Lyon
+33(0)4 72 38 49 30
Google map: bit.ly/o8TKtx

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Altamira Cave was discovered in 1879. It contains Palaeolithic cave art, and the cave is of one of the most spectacular sites. It houses prehistoric paintings of bison, horses, deer, hands and mysterious signs painted over 15,000 years ago, in the Upper Palaeolithic. Altamira Cave became a World Heritage site in 1985. Although you cannot visit the original cave, the replica feels authentic and worth a visit and the museum gives a lot of information about the finding of the cave and the prehistoric time when the paintings were made. There is also a dedicated space for children to have a go at prehistoric painting.

museodealtamira.mcu.es/ingles/cueva_altamira.html
Alfoz de Lloredo, Spain
+34 942 81 80 05
Google map: bit.ly/nNcC0u

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Dunbeath Heritage Centre sits just off the A9, from Inverness to Wick and on the top edge of the UK. Here you can learn the history of Neil M Gunn (1891-1973), and immerse yourself in his books. Read the heartbreaking account of Scottish fishing folk devastated by the Highland Clearances in The Silver Darlings (1941). Or, while staying in Dunbeath, read Gunn’s Highland River (1937), climbing from childhood to manhood as he wanders further up Dunbeath River to its source, and then follow the path of the atmospheric novel at your leisure. This is not a well-trodden tourist track, with plenty of ancient sites, ensuring your time spent in Gunn’s company becomes a gentle and spiritual experience. Gunn's story can be found in the centre.

www.dunbeath-heritage.org.uk/
The Old School, Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland, KW6 6D
+44(0)1593 731233
Google map: bit.ly/oYV2QP

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Worth going in to this late Gothic chapel to see the final resting place of the two famous Spanish Catholic monarchs Isabel and Fernando.
The two monarchs lie in the crypt in simple lead coffins along with a few other related royals.

www.capillarealgranada.com/
Calle Oficios, 1, 18001 Granada, Spain
+34 958 22 78 48
Google map: bit.ly/pbvDHa

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