Europe
Dublin
To Francis Bacon (1909-1992), the mess in his London studio was "rather like my mind." The careful recreation of that chaos in a Dublin gallery may help explain the Irish-born artist's predilection for screaming Popes, deformed children and raw flesh. In a two-year project, more than 7,000 items hoarded by the painter, including floor and roof timbers, paint tubes, cartons of champagne and torn-up corduroy trousers, were removed from Bacon's studio by a team of "archaeologists" and returned to their exact locations in a glassed-in replica room, in the Hugh Lane Gallery, which went on public view last week.
Berlin
She made her name in Hollywood and her final home in Paris, but Marlene Dietrich remained a Berliner-despite a sometimes stormy relationship with her birthplace. A fierce opponent of Nazism, the sultry actress entertained Allied troops in Germany in an American uniform (and as a U.S. citizen), an event that was still causing controversy during her first postwar German tour in 1960. But Germans are falling in love with Dietrich again on her centenary. Near the recently named Marlene Dietrich Platz, Berlin's Film Museum devotes three rooms to a rotating exhibition of the 3,000 dresses, 10,000 photographs and 350,000 documents which the city of Berlin bought from the actress's daughter.
Globe
Tours
Despite the global reach of pharmaceutical companies, traditional therapies like acupuncture and herbal medicine are still widely practiced in many parts of the world. British-based Master Travel offers study tours for health professionals-and adventurous travelers after a healing holiday-to China, Russia, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Japan, Peru, Bolivia, India, Ecuador (including the Galapagos Islands) and Chile. Participants can learn about the use of herbs in childbirth at Beijing's Xi Yuan Hospital of Chinese medicine, visit a rural clinic in the Andean village of Chinchero, tour an Ayurvedic health centre in Kerala or take tea in Lawrence of Arabia's carriage at the Damascus railway station. See .
North America
Los Angeles
Tourists can experience Hollywood's twin passions-celebrity and fitness-on a Stars of the Silver Screen running tour around Los Angeles' celebrity neighborhoods. Off'n Running offers weekly 6-to-10-km runs past the estates of celebrities like actress Diane Keaton, singer Rod Stewart and producer Aaron Spelling, as well as Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. Tours last about 90 min. and cost from $23, including a souvenir T shirt and bagel breakfast: Individual runs are also available. To book, e-mail Cheryl Anker at .