Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
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Kyffhäuserland
The Barbarossa Cave (Barbarossahöhle) near Rottleben in northern Thuringia is one of only two accessible anhydrite caves in the world and the only anhydrite show cave in Western Europe. Instead of stalactites, you will see glassy blue-gree…
Palaces
Mannheim
Mannheim Palace (Barockschloss Mannheim) is one of the largest palaces in Europe, a red sandstone Baroque residence more than 400 meters wide in the middle of Mannheim's city center. Built for the Electors of the Palatinate, it now houses…
Churches & monasteries
Köln
St. Gereon in Cologne is one of the city's twelve great Romanesque churches and one of its most unusual: a basilica with a ten-sided domed hall that grew out of a late Roman oval building. If you have already seen the cathedral and want to…
Churches & monasteries
Weingarten
The Basilica of St. Martin in Weingarten is the largest Baroque church in Germany. Its 67-meter dome, 102-meter length and twin-towered facade make it one of the highlights of the Upper Swabian Baroque Route, and inside you will find a fam…
Churches & monasteries
Augsburg
At the southern end of Maximilianstraße stands Augsburg's most striking monument to its religious history: two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant, wall to wall. The larger one, the Basilica of St Ulrich and St Afra, is one of the la…
Churches & monasteries
Bad Staffelstein
The Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (Basilika Vierzehnheiligen) near Bad Staffelstein in Upper Franconia is one of the finest Baroque churches in Germany. Designed by Balthasar Neumann, the architect of the UNESCO-listed Würzburg Res…
Museums
Weimar
The Bauhaus Museum Weimar tells the story of the 20th century's most influential design school in the very city where it was founded in 1919. Housed in a stark concrete cube that opened for the Bauhaus centenary, it holds the oldest Bauhau…
Caves
Rübeland
According to legend, a miner called Friedrich Baumann stumbled into this cave in the 16th century while looking for ore, lost his light and wandered in the dark for three days. He found his way out but died soon afterwards. The story is no…
Viewpoints
Beelitz
Beneath your feet is a roof with trees growing on it. The Beelitz-Heilstätten Treetop Walk runs 17 to 23 metres above the ground through the crowns of an old hospital park and straight over the ruin of the Alpenhaus, a ward block that burn…
Viewpoints
Unstrut-Hainich
The Hainich Treetop Walk (Baumkronenpfad Hainich) in Hainich National Park is one of the best-known canopy walkways in Germany and a fine stop if you want to see an ancient beech forest from above. A 540-meter path winds through the canopy…
Monuments
München
The Bavaria statue in Munich is a huge bronze figure on a hill above the Theresienwiese fairground, in front of the Hall of Fame (Ruhmeshalle). It is one of the more unusual things to do in Munich, because you can climb up inside the statu…
Museums
Bonn
The Beethoven House in Bonn (Beethoven-Haus) is the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven and home to the world's largest Beethoven collection. In this modest pink townhouse on Bonngasse, the composer was born in December 1770. Today its crea…
Monuments
Kelheim
The Befreiungshalle, or Hall of Liberation, is a massive rotunda on the Michelsberg hill above Kelheim in Lower Bavaria, where the Altmühl River meets the Danube. King Ludwig I built it to celebrate the victories over Napoleon in the Wars…
Theme parks
Leipzig
Belantis on the southern edge of Leipzig is the largest theme park in central Germany and a popular family day out in Saxony. Built on a former open-cast lignite mine next to today's lake district, it spreads eight themed worlds across the…
Viewpoints
Berlin
Berliners affectionately call it the "Langer Lulatsch", the "beanpole". The Funkturm on the trade fair grounds in Westend is 43 years older than the TV tower on Alexanderplatz and when it opened it was the tallest broadcasting and observat…
Landmarks
Berlin
The Berlin Philharmonie, in the Kulturforum district next to Potsdamer Platz, is one of the world's most famous concert halls and a landmark of postwar architecture. Designed by Hans Scharoun, the golden building is home to the Berlin Phil…
Old towns & squares
Bernkastel-Kues
Bernkastel-Kues is one of the most charming wine towns on the Moselle River and one of the best things to see in the Moselle Valley. Its medieval market square is lined with colorful half-timbered houses, a castle ruin watches over the old…
Industrial heritage
Lichterfeld-Schacksdorf
It is longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, and it was built for a life in the mine that lasted barely eighteen months. The F60 conveyor bridge near Lichterfeld in southern Brandenburg is 502 metres long, up to 80 metres high and 240 metre…
Lakes
Attendorn
Lake Bigge looks as if it had always been there: a branching body of water between wooded Sauerland hills, with sailing boats, swimming bays and a protected island. In fact it has only existed since 1965, and whole villages lie beneath its…
Other
Wiesenttal
Bing Cave (Binghöhle) in Streitberg is one of the best-known show caves in Franconian Switzerland, a hilly region of limestone cliffs and castles north of Nuremberg. A level path about 270 m (885 ft) long follows the bed of an ancient unde…
Old towns & squares
Hamburg
Blankenese is Hamburg's most picturesque Elbe suburb: a former fishing village on a hillside, with white villas, narrow lanes and a beach on the river. Its famous stair quarter with about 5,000 steps, the Süllberg hill with views of contai…
Lakes
Blaubeuren
The Blautopf in Blaubeuren is a spring of almost unreal color: a funnel-shaped pool on the edge of the Swabian Alb that glows turquoise to deep blue, about 10 miles west of Ulm in Baden-Württemberg. It is the source of the Blau River, the…
Gardens & parks
Ludwigsburg
Blühendes Barock ("Baroque in Bloom") in Ludwigsburg is one of Germany's best-known garden shows, covering about 30 hectares (74 acres) around Ludwigsburg Residential Palace. Formal Baroque flower beds, English-style landscape gardens, a f…
Museums
Berlin
The Bode Museum (Bode-Museum) sits at the northern tip of Berlin's Museum Island, a striking neo-Baroque building with a green dome rising above the River Spree. It holds the Sculpture Collection, the Museum of Byzantine Art, and the Coin…