Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Churches & monasteries
Bremen
St. Peter's Cathedral in Bremen (St. Petri Dom) is the twin-spired church that towers over the city's Market Square, right beside the UNESCO-listed Town Hall. Its roots go back to the 8th century, and today the Lutheran cathedral combines…
Churches & monasteries
Münster
St. Paul's Cathedral in Münster (St.-Paulus-Dom) is the seat of the Diocese of Münster and, together with the historic town hall, the defining landmark of this university city in Westphalia. Its twin Romanesque towers, Gothic interior and…
Lakes
Starnberg
Lake Starnberg (Starnberger See) is Munich's favorite lake, stretching about 12 miles (19.5 km) south from the town of Starnberg toward the Alps, only 15 miles (25 km) from the city. Germany's fifth-largest lake is lined with villas, beach…
Waterfalls
Sonthofen
The Starzlachklamm near Sonthofen is a narrow limestone gorge at the foot of the Grünten mountain in the Allgäu region of southern Bavaria. Secured walkways and bridges lead past waterfalls, swirling potholes and steep rock walls packed wi…
Lakes
Wunstorf
Steinhuder Meer is the largest lake in Lower Saxony, about 30 kilometers northwest of Hannover, and a favorite day trip for cyclists, sailors and families. Covering roughly 29 square kilometers but only a few meters deep, it feels like a s…
Churches & monasteries
Quedlinburg
St. Servatius Collegiate Church in Quedlinburg sits on a castle hill above one of Germany's best-preserved medieval towns and is among the country's finest Romanesque churches. King Henry I and his wife Mathilde are buried in its crypt, an…
Viewpoints
Stuttgart
The Stuttgart TV Tower (Fernsehturm Stuttgart) is a city landmark and a milestone in engineering history: completed in 1956, it was the world's first TV tower built of reinforced concrete with an observation pod, and it became the model fo…
Coast & islands
Sylt
Sylt is Germany's largest North Sea island and its most famous beach destination, tucked against the Danish border in Schleswig-Holstein. Think nearly 40 kilometers of sandy beach facing the open sea, the glowing Red Cliff at Kampen, shift…
Lakes
Lenggries
The Sylvenstein Reservoir (Sylvensteinspeicher) near Lenggries is a turquoise mountain lake in the Isarwinkel region of Upper Bavaria, framed by the Karwendel range. It lies about 75 kilometers south of Munich on the road between Bad Tölz…
Museums
Speyer
Technik Museum Speyer is one of Germany's best places to get up close to giant aircraft and spacecraft. On the site of a historic airfield in the cathedral city of Speyer, you can walk through a Lufthansa Boeing 747, step out onto its wing…
Museums
Mannheim
The Technoseum in Mannheim is Baden-Württemberg's state museum of technology and work, and one of Germany's major science and technology museums. Spread over six levels, it tells the story of industrialization and everyday technology throu…
Lakes
Tegernsee
Lake Tegernsee is one of the most popular Alpine lakes in Upper Bavaria, set in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps about 30 miles (50 km) south of Munich. Five villages ring its shores, including the town of Tegernsee with its former monas…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
Teufelsberg in Berlin is one of the capital's most unusual attractions: a hill built from World War II rubble, topped by a former Cold War listening station with huge white radar domes, Europe's largest street art gallery and a panoramic v…
Caves
Pottenstein
The Devil's Cave (Teufelshöhle) near Pottenstein is the largest of roughly 1,000 caves in Franconian Switzerland, a craggy hill region in northern Bavaria about an hour's drive from Nuremberg. A guided tour leads through lofty halls filled…
Churches & monasteries
München
The Theatinerkirche, or Theatine Church of St. Cajetan, on Odeonsplatz in Munich is Bavaria's first Baroque church and one of the best-known landmarks of the old town. Its yellow facade, huge dome and twin towers define the city skyline. A…
Theme parks
Erding
Therme Erding, just northeast of Munich, is widely described as the largest thermal spa in the world – a vast indoor and outdoor complex of thermal pools, a wave pool, water slides and saunas. Only about 9 miles (14 km) from Munich Airport…
Zoos
Berlin
Tierpark Berlin in the eastern district of Lichtenberg is Europe's largest landscape zoo, spread across 160 hectares of meadows, woodland and ponds around a baroque palace. Founded in 1955 as East Berlin's answer to the older zoo in the We…
Museums
Berlin
The Tränenpalast ("Palace of Tears") next to Friedrichstraße station in central Berlin was the departure hall of East Berlin's busiest border crossing during the Cold War. East Germans said goodbye here to relatives from the West, never su…
Museums
Bremen
The Universum Bremen is a hands-on science center in northern Bremen where visitors of all ages learn by touching, testing and experimenting. Its striking stainless-steel building, often compared to a whale or a giant mussel, sits beside a…
Waterfalls
Bad Urach
The Uracher Wasserfall (Urach Waterfall) near Bad Urach is one of the best-known waterfalls in the Swabian Jura, the limestone upland south of Stuttgart. In the quiet Maisental valley, the Brühlbach stream drops over a mossy ledge of calca…
Museums
Dresden
The Dresden Transport Museum (Verkehrsmuseum Dresden) sits in the historic Johanneum on Neumarkt square, a few steps from the Frauenkirche. Across roughly 5,000 square meters it tells the story of road, rail, water and air travel, from an…
Castles
Coburg
Veste Coburg is a vast medieval fortress perched about 160 meters above the town of Coburg in northern Bavaria, close to the border with Thuringia. Often called the "Crown of Franconia," it is one of the largest and best-preserved castle c…
Industrial heritage
Kochel am See
The Walchensee Hydroelectric Power Station in Kochel am See is one of Germany's great industrial landmarks and still produces electricity a century after it opened. Six enormous steel pipes carry water from Lake Walchensee down roughly 200…
Monuments
Donaustauf
The Walhalla near Donaustauf, just east of Regensburg, is a hall of fame built in the form of a Greek temple, high above the Danube River. King Ludwig I of Bavaria created it to honor great figures of the German-speaking world, and today m…