Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
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…
Museums
Bamberg
Step into the Bird Hall and you are in a room that has barely changed in 200 years: white and blue cabinets on two levels, a gallery all round and more than a thousand colourful mounted birds. Bamberg's Natural History Museum in the island…
Museums
Mettmann
In August 1856 two workers in a limestone quarry east of Düsseldorf were clearing out a small cave and tossed a few bones down the slope with the clay. Those bones gave a whole human species its name. The Neanderthal Museum stands just a f…
Museums
Berlin
A black steel roof, 64.8 metres square and weighing 1,260 tonnes, rests on just eight columns above a hall made entirely of glass. The Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum is the last work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the only buildi…
Museums
Berlin
The Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island is home to the world-famous bust of Nefertiti. It also houses the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, with the golden Berlin Gold Hat and Heinrich Schliemann's finds from Troy. Just as memorab…
Museums
Lübeck
Thomas Mann in marzipan, life-size: the Niederegger Marzipan Museum shows twelve famous figures modelled in almond paste, all of them fans of Lübeck marzipan. The small museum is on the second floor of Niederegger's flagship house on Breit…
Museums
Dresden
The Panometer Dresden is a former gasometer in the Reick district where artist Yadegar Asisi shows enormous 360-degree panoramas. The name blends "panorama" and "gasometer." If you are looking for unusual things to do in Dresden, this imme…
Museums
Uhldingen-Mühlhofen
The Pfahlbaumuseum Unteruhldingen (Lake Dwellings Museum) on the northern shore of Lake Constance is one of the most memorable things to do in southern Germany: wooden boardwalks lead you through reconstructed Stone Age and Bronze Age vill…
Museums
München
The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich's Maxvorstadt district is one of Germany's largest museums for modern art, architecture, graphic art and design. Opened in 2002 and designed by Stephan Braunfels, it houses four independent museums unde…
Museums
Hamburg
The Hamburg Planetarium sits in a striking brick water tower in the city's Stadtpark, and it has been showing the night sky since 1930. Under a dome more than 20 meters wide you can watch live star shows, 3D journeys through space, music s…
Museums
Aschaffenburg
A Roman house on the river Main, painted yellow with a red base and a vineyard below: the Pompejanum in Aschaffenburg looks as if someone had moved a piece of Pompeii to Lower Franconia. That was exactly the idea. King Ludwig I of Bavaria…
Museums
Stuttgart
The Porsche Museum in Stuttgart stands right next to the sports car maker's main factory in the Zuffenhausen district and tells the story of the brand through around 80 cars, from the very first Porsche to Le Mans winners. The futuristic w…
Museums
Hamburg
The Rickmer Rickmers is a green three-masted sailing ship from 1896 that now serves as a museum ship at the St. Pauli Landungsbrücken in Hamburg. It is one of the best things to do in Hamburg's harbor: you can go aboard, explore an exhibit…
Museums
Homburg
The Schwarzenacker Roman Museum in Homburg is an open-air archaeological museum in Saarland where you walk through the excavated remains of a Gallo-Roman village. Reconstructed houses, columns and a Baroque garden bring the everyday life o…
Museums
Köln
The Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne (Römisch-Germanisches Museum) tells the story of how a Roman colony on the Rhine became one of Germany's great cities, with a world-class collection of Roman glass, sculpture and everyday objects. Befo…
Museums
Frankfurt am Main
The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is one of Europe's best-known venues for modern and contemporary art. Its original building between the cathedral and the Römerberg is being renovated for energy efficiency, so for now the Schirn presents it…
Museums
Schleswig
Gottorf Castle (Schloss Gottorf) in Schleswig is the former seat of the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorf and today the home of the Schleswig-Holstein State Museums. Its long white Baroque facade rises from an island at the head of the Schlei inle…
Museums
Gutach (Schwarzwaldbahn)
The Black Forest Open Air Museum Vogtsbauernhof in Gutach is the best-known open-air museum in the Black Forest and one of the most rewarding things to do in this part of southwest Germany. Historic farmhouses, mills and workshops were mov…
Museums
Stuttgart
Bright green window bands, pink and blue tubular handrails and striped sandstone and travertine walls that recall an ancient building: when James Stirling's Neue Staatsgalerie opened in 1984, architects argued fiercely about it. Today it i…
Museums
Berlin
The Stasi Museum in Berlin's Lichtenberg district occupies Building 1 of the former headquarters of East Germany's Ministry for State Security. From here Erich Mielke ran the secret police for more than three decades. Today you can walk th…