Bohemia has been glass making center for hundreds of years. Saxony is the birthplace of European porcelain. This rapturous trip takes you to the capitals of both historic kingdoms, Prague and Dresden, connected by a journey through western Bohemia.

A walk through Prague is an unending journey through Gothic, Baroque, and Art Nouveau architecture accented by the Czechs’ innovative cubist architecture and a dash of postmodernism. Dresden, the phoenix that rose from the rubble of World War II, lives up to its moniker of “Florence on the Elba.” A city of glorious 18th-century architecture, you will have 17 state museums—fine art, decorative arts, science, history—from which to choose. Along the way, you will visit glass and porcelain collections, tour castles, see Czech craftsmen making Bohemian glass, and German porcelain makers in Meissen’s workshops.

The Czech Republic and eastern Germany also boast excellent, if little known, wine-making regions as well as some of the greatest breweries in the world. The trip is a culinary and aesthetic rhapsody.