Israel’s Museum of the Good Samaritan (phone 02 541 7555) has opened on the Jerusalem/Dead Sea Road, several miles east of Ma’ale Adumim. Along with many mosaics, some from Samaritan synagogues, there are religious artifacts and items from cave dwellings. Open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sun.-Thurs.
The Bach Museum Leipzig (Thomaskirchhof 15/16, 04109 Leipzig, Germany; phone +49 0 341 9137 202, fax 9137 205) will reopen March 20, 2010, following a renovation and expansion.
Offering new multimedia exhibits exploring the composer’s life and music as well as original manuscripts and an organ examined by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1743, it is open 10-6 Tuesday-Sunday. Adult €6 ($9), “reduced” €4 and under 16 free.
15 days/13 nights; departures through Oct. 30, 2011. Highlights: In Istanbul, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace/Hittite Museum, Ankara/Cappadocia for rock churches, frescoes in open-air museum/Zelve/drive Turquoise Coast to Antalya/Whirling Dervish Museum in Konya/first-century Aphrodisias/Ephesus/Pergamum/Troy. From JFK, from $1,599. Single supp., from $450.
Troy Tours, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA; 800/748-6878).
Drawings and sketches by Renaissance architect and designer Gian Lorenzo Bernini, most famous for designing St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, will be exhibited Nov. 9, 2014-Feb. 1, 2015, at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (Katharinenstrasse 10, 04109 LEIPZIG, Germany; phone +49 341 216 990).
200-plus pieces from the museum’s collection as well as loans from Rome, Vatican City and Austria will be displayed.
CORRECTION — Above the subscriber’s letter about a Trans-Siberian Railway trip and an excursion to Lake Baikal (Aug. ’14, pg. 73) in Russia, the photo described as having been taken in the “Cossacks Village” actually shows the Taltsy Museum of Wooden Architecture.
The open-air museum features authentic 17th- to 19th-century buildings transported there from other parts of Siberia.
A familiar face in an unfamiliar place — February’s photo shows a moai (giant stone figure) who started life on Easter Island but today stands outside the Fonck Museum in Viña del Mar, Chile.
Sixteen readers sent in the correct answer for July’s picture, the Bahnar communal house at the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. JANET TANNE of Simi Valley, California, won the drawing.
The Ta Dzong, or the National Museum, in Paro, Bhutan, is the subject of April’s photo.
Thirty-two readers sent in the correct answer, and the winner of the drawing is BETTE EVANS of Richland, Washington.
We thank Leslie Fry of Scottsdale, Arizona, for sending in the photo.
Alternative energy: this windmill’s turning at the Skansen Open Air Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Six readers sent in the correct answer, and LINNEA SAFFELL of Kalamazoo, Michigan, won the drawing.
We thank Allyn Burke of Pollock Pines, California, for sending in the picture.
