Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Lakes
Hannover
Maschsee is the lakeside heart of Hannover: an artificial lake just south of the city center, ringed by a shoreline path, sailing clubs, a beach bathing area and beer gardens. Locals jog, cycle and stroll the roughly 6-kilometer loop, ride…
Landmarks
Darmstadt
Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, about 30 km south of Frankfurt, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Europe's key landmarks of Art Nouveau (called Jugendstil in German) and early modernism. From 1899, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse bro…
Gardens & parks
Berlin
Mauerpark (Wall Park) in Berlin lies on the former border strip between the districts of Prenzlauer Berg and Gesundbrunnen. Today it is a lively public park with grassy hills, a graffiti wall, and an amphitheater, famous for its Sunday fle…
Landmarks
Düsseldorf
The MedienHafen (Media Harbor) in Düsseldorf is the city's showcase of contemporary architecture. On the site of an old Rhine cargo port, you now find Frank Gehry's famous twisting buildings, colorful office towers, design hotels and water…
Museums
Stralsund
The Meeresmuseum (Sea Museum) in Stralsund is the original home of the German Oceanographic Museum foundation and a favorite stop on Germany's Baltic coast. It sits in the heart of Stralsund's UNESCO-listed old town inside a former medieva…
Churches & monasteries
Merseburg
Merseburg Cathedral, dedicated to St. John and St. Lawrence, rises above the Saale River in Merseburg, between Halle and Leipzig. Joined directly to Merseburg Palace, it is a highlight of Germany's Romanesque Road and holds remarkable trea…
Landmarks
Frankfurt am Main
The Messeturm (Trade Fair Tower) in Frankfurt is one of the city's most recognizable skyscrapers: a red granite tower topped by a pyramid, standing beside the exhibition grounds on Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage. At about 257 meters (843 feet) it…
Churches & monasteries
Hildesheim
Above the nave of St. Michael's hangs a picture book made of wood: 1,300 oak planks, painted around 1200 with the family tree of Christ. Monumental ceiling painting of this age survives in only two other places in Europe. Yet the building…
Museums
Dresden
The Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden is one of Germany's major history museums and a striking piece of architecture. Star architect Daniel Libeskind drove a giant wedge of steel and glass straight through a 19th-century Saxon…
Museums
Koblenz
It all began with a priest who loved paintings: Joseph Gregor Lang collected over 200 pictures in his small parsonage in Neuendorf and left them to his home town in 1834. They became the Mittelrhein Museum, one of Germany's oldest civic mu…
Theme parks
Bottrop
Movie Park Germany in Bottrop-Kirchhellen is a movie-themed amusement park on the northern edge of Germany's Ruhr region, about an hour's drive from Cologne and Düsseldorf. Spread over roughly 45 hectares (110 acres), it mixes roller coast…
Viewpoints
Berlin
The Müggelturm is an observation tower in Berlin's Köpenick district, set on a wooded hill in the Müggelberge, the city's highest natural hills. Climb 126 steps and you get a sweeping view over Lake Müggelsee, the Dahme River and miles of…
Lakes
Seebach
Mummelsee is the best-known mountain lake in the northern Black Forest, set right on the Black Forest High Road at more than 3,300 feet above sea level. This small, dark glacial lake, ringed by spruce forest beneath the Hornisgrinde, is wr…
Industrial heritage
Solingen
The Müngsten Bridge between Solingen and Remscheid is the tallest railway bridge in Germany, rising 107 meters above the Wupper valley. The delicate steel arch, finished in 1897, is a landmark of the Bergisches Land and a popular day trip…
National parks
Kargow
Müritz National Park in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is Germany's largest national park on land and one of the best places in the country to see wild nature without mountains or crowds. Spread out east of Lake Müritz, it is a mosaic of mo…
Museums
Potsdam
You don't have to go to Paris to see Monet: Museum Barberini on Potsdam's Alter Markt holds 38 paintings by Claude Monet, more than any other museum outside the French capital. Add Renoir, Caillebotte, Signac, Sisley, Morisot and Pissarro,…
Museums
München
The Museum Brandhorst in Munich's Maxvorstadt district is a contemporary art museum in one of the most eye-catching buildings in Germany. Its facade of thousands of colorful ceramic rods, designed by Sauerbruch Hutton, makes it easy to rec…
Museums
Hamburg
The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (the Museum of Arts and Crafts, or MK&G) is one of Europe's major design museums, and it sits right next to Hamburg's main train station. It is an easy first stop when you arrive by train, or a good…
Museums
Frankfurt am Main
The Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK) in Frankfurt is one of Germany's most important museums of contemporary art. Its main building in the old town, Hans Hollein's wedge-shaped "slice of cake", is a landmark in itself. One thing to know befo…
Museums
Berlin
The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (Natural History Museum) is the largest natural history museum in Germany and one of the best things to do in central Berlin. In its glass-roofed main hall you stand beneath the skeleton of Giraffatitan, re…
Museums
Düsseldorf
Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf is the city's big art museum, set in the brick Ehrenhof complex on the banks of the Rhine, a short walk north of the Old Town. Under one roof it brings together Flemish Baroque painting including Rubens, th…
Museums
Cloppenburg
The Cloppenburg Museum Village (Museumsdorf Cloppenburg) is Lower Saxony's open-air museum and one of the oldest and largest of its kind in Germany. On about 20 hectares it shows more than 50 original buildings from the 16th to the early 2…
Industrial heritage
Rüdersdorf bei Berlin
Museumspark Rüdersdorf is an open-air museum of industrial heritage just beyond Berlin's eastern city limits. Across 17 hectares, historic lime kilns, canals and a striking row of shaft kilns tell how limestone was quarried and burned here…
Landmarks
Weimar
A white, almost square cube with a taller middle section, in a residential street on the edge of the Ilm park: at first glance the Haus Am Horn looks unremarkable. Yet it is the only Bauhaus building actually built in Weimar and one of the…