Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Industrial heritage
Goslar
The Rammelsberg Mine in Goslar is one of the most remarkable industrial sites in Germany: a mountain that was mined for more than a thousand years and is now a UNESCO World Heritage museum and show mine. You can ride a mine train into the…
Theme parks
Krausnick-Groß Wasserburg
Tropical Islands near Krausnick, south of Berlin, is Europe's largest tropical resort: a gigantic dome housing a sandy beach, a warm lagoon, a rainforest and water slides, all kept at summer temperatures year-round. The resort fills a form…
Museums
Dresden
The Green Vault in Dresden (Grünes Gewölbe) is one of the richest treasure chambers in Europe and a highlight of any trip to eastern Germany. Housed in Dresden's Royal Palace, it displays the jewels, gold work, ivory and rock crystal amass…
Landmarks
Dresden
The Semperoper in Dresden is one of the world's great opera houses and the centerpiece of Dresden's Theaterplatz. Home to the Saxon State Opera and the Staatskapelle Dresden orchestra, it saw the world premieres of operas by Richard Wagner…
Historic sites & memorials
Augsburg
The Fuggerei in Augsburg is the world's oldest social housing complex still in use, and one of the most unusual things to do in Bavaria. Founded in 1521 by the merchant banker Jakob Fugger "the Rich," it still houses around 150 people in n…
Castles
Meersburg
Meersburg Castle on Lake Constance is often called the oldest inhabited castle in Germany. Its stocky Dagobert Tower rises above the old town of Meersburg, and inside, more than 35 furnished rooms trace castle life from the dungeon to the…
Castles
Braubach
Marksburg Castle above the town of Braubach is the only medieval hilltop castle on the Middle Rhine that was never destroyed, which makes it a must-see on any trip through the Rhine Gorge. Perched high above the river in the UNESCO-listed…
Museums
Frankfurt am Main
The Städel Museum in Frankfurt is one of Germany's most important art museums and the star of the city's Museum Embankment along the Main River. Its collection spans some 700 years of European art, from medieval altarpieces and Botticelli…
Landmarks
Berlin
Potsdamer Platz in Berlin tells the story of the 20th century in a single square. In the 1920s it was one of the busiest traffic hubs in Europe; after World War II it became a no-man's-land cut in two by the Berlin Wall; and since the 1990…
Industrial heritage
Völklingen
The Völklingen Ironworks (Völklinger Hütte) in Völklingen, Saarland, is a vast former ironworks and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994. It was the first industrial monument from the age of industrialization to receive that status, and…
Museums
Berlin
The Humboldt Forum in Berlin is a vast museum and cultural center housed in the rebuilt Berlin Palace, right across from Museum Island in the historic heart of the city. Behind its reconstructed baroque facades you'll find world cultures c…
Museums
Berlin
The Jewish Museum Berlin in the Kreuzberg district is one of the most visited museums in the German capital and among the largest Jewish museums in Europe. It traces Jewish life in Germany from medieval communities to the present day, insi…
Churches & monasteries
Berlin
The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche) on Breitscheidplatz in western Berlin is one of the city's most powerful landmarks: the bomb-damaged tower of a 19th-century church, flanked by a modern church whose wall…
Historic sites & memorials
Berlin
The Topography of Terror in Berlin is a free documentation center on the exact site where Nazi Germany ran its machinery of persecution. From 1933 to 1945 this block housed the headquarters of the Gestapo, the SS leadership, and the Reich…
Landmarks
Dessau-Roßlau
The Bauhaus Building in Dessau is the birthplace of modern design as the world knows it. Designed by Walter Gropius for the Bauhaus school and opened in December 1926, its glass curtain wall and vertical "BAUHAUS" lettering became icons of…
Old towns & squares
Berlin
The Nikolaiviertel (Nikolai Quarter) in Berlin is where the city was born. Around the Nikolaikirche, Berlin's oldest church, a medieval trading settlement grew in the 13th century into what would become the German capital. Today's quarter…
Museums
Berlin
The DDR Museum in Berlin brings everyday life in communist East Germany (the GDR, or DDR in German) to life through hands-on exhibits. Sit behind the wheel of a Trabant, open the drawers of a fully furnished prefab apartment, and step into…
Churches & monasteries
München
The Frauenkirche in Munich, officially the Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, is the city's best-known landmark and one of the first things to see on any visit to the Bavarian capital. Its twin brick towers with their rounded green caps have defi…
Palaces
München
The Munich Residenz is the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach dynasty and the largest city-center palace in Germany. For more than four centuries, Bavaria's dukes, electors and kings ruled from this sprawling complex in the heart of Mu…
Palaces
Ludwigsburg
Ludwigsburg Palace (Residenzschloss Ludwigsburg), just north of Stuttgart, is one of the largest Baroque palaces in Germany and is often called the "Versailles of Swabia." With about 452 rooms, two churches, an 18th-century theater and a v…
Museums
München
The Alte Pinakothek in Munich is one of the world's great art museums, home to European Old Master paintings from the Middle Ages to the Rococo. In the city's museum quarter, the Kunstareal, you can stand in front of works by Dürer, Leonar…
Viewpoints
München
St. Peter's Church in Munich, known to locals as "Alter Peter" (Old Peter), is the city's oldest parish church and home to one of the best viewpoints in town. Climb the tower right next to Marienplatz and you look straight down on the New…
Historic sites & memorials
Weimar
The Buchenwald Memorial (Gedenkstätte Buchenwald) on the Ettersberg hill above Weimar preserves the site of one of the largest Nazi concentration camps on German soil. Between 1937 and 1945, about 277,800 people from some 50 countries were…
Landmarks
München
The Hofbräuhaus am Platzl in Munich is probably the most famous beer hall in the world and a must on many first trips to Bavaria. In the heart of the Old Town, a few minutes' walk from Marienplatz, locals, regulars' clubs and visitors from…