Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
Zoos
München
Hellabrunn Zoo (Tierpark Hellabrunn) in Munich is one of Germany's most popular zoos and a top family day out in the Bavarian capital. Set on about 40 hectares (100 acres) of riverside meadows along the Isar in the south of the city, it is…
Landmarks
Hamburg
Hamburg City Hall (Hamburger Rathaus) is the seat of the city-state's government and parliament and one of the grandest civic buildings in Germany. Its neo-Renaissance facade and soaring clock tower dominate the Rathausmarkt square in the…
Historic sites & memorials
Dachau
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau), just northwest of Munich, preserves the grounds of the first long-running concentration camp set up by the Nazis. Between 1933 and 1945, more than 160,000 people were im…
Industrial heritage
Hamburg
The Old Elbe Tunnel (Alter Elbtunnel, officially St. Pauli Elbtunnel) in Hamburg has carried people beneath the Elbe River since 1911. You ride vintage elevators down a domed shaft, walk through two tiled tubes about 24 meters (80 feet) be…
Museums
Hamburg
The Hamburger Kunsthalle is Hamburg's great art museum, set right beside the main train station, with eight centuries of art from medieval altarpieces to contemporary installations. It is home to Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer above th…
Museums
Hamburg
The International Maritime Museum Hamburg (Internationales Maritimes Museum, IMMH) fills nine floors of a historic red-brick warehouse with ship models, paintings, navigation instruments and naval history. It sits between the UNESCO-listed…
Museums
Stralsund
The Ozeaneum in Stralsund is one of northern Germany's most popular museums: a large aquarium and marine museum on the Baltic coast, with life-size whale models and Humboldt penguins on the roof. Its striking white, sail-like building stan…
Palaces
Dresden
Dresden Castle, known locally as the Residenzschloss, was the seat of Saxony's electors and kings for some four centuries and is now one of the richest museum complexes in Europe. Behind its Renaissance towers in the heart of Dresden's Old…
Gardens & parks
Bad Muskau
Muskau Park (Fürst-Pückler-Park Bad Muskau) in eastern Saxony is one of Europe's great English-style landscape gardens, and one of the few that spans two countries. Its roughly 830 hectares (2,050 acres) stretch across both banks of the Ne…
Palaces
Dresden
Pillnitz Palace (Schloss Pillnitz) is the former summer residence of Saxony's electors and kings, set right on the Elbe River on the eastern edge of Dresden. Its three palaces, with curving Chinese-style roofs, are surrounded by about 25 h…
Museums
Dresden
The Old Masters Picture Gallery (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister) in Dresden is one of the great art museums of the world. Housed in the Semper Building at the Zwinger palace complex, it displays around 700 masterpieces from the 15th to the 18…
Churches & monasteries
Köln
Great St. Martin Church in Cologne (Groß St. Martin) is one of the city's twelve great Romanesque churches, and its massive crossing tower is the second landmark on Cologne's riverfront skyline after the cathedral. Rising above the colorfu…
Zoos
Köln
The Cologne Zoo (Kölner Zoo) in the city's Riehl district is one of Germany's oldest and most popular zoos, welcoming visitors since 1860 and well over a million people a year today. Across about 20 hectares (50 acres), you can see Asian e…
Museums
Köln
The Museum Ludwig in Cologne is one of Europe's leading museums of 20th- and 21st-century art, set right between Cologne Cathedral and the Rhine. It holds the largest Pop Art collection in Europe, the world's third-largest Picasso collecti…
Museums
Köln
The Chocolate Museum in Cologne (Schokoladenmuseum Köln) is the city's most visited museum and one of the most popular museums in Germany. Set in a ship-shaped glass building at the tip of the Rheinauhafen harbor peninsula, it follows coco…
Viewpoints
Köln
The KölnTriangle in Cologne's Deutz district is a glass office tower on the east bank of the Rhine whose observation deck offers arguably the best view of Cologne Cathedral. From more than 100 meters up, the river, the Hohenzollern Bridge…
Churches & monasteries
Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt Cathedral – officially the Imperial Cathedral of St. Bartholomew (Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus) – is the largest church in Frankfurt am Main and one of the most important sites of German history. For centuries the prince-electors c…
Viewpoints
Frankfurt am Main
The Main Tower in Frankfurt am Main is the only skyscraper in the city with an observation deck open to the public, which makes it the easiest way to see Germany's financial capital from above. From about 200 meters (656 feet) up, you look…
Museums
Frankfurt am Main
The Goethe House (Goethe-Haus) in Frankfurt am Main is the family home where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's most celebrated writer, was born and grew up. Furnished with period pieces, paintings and household objects, the elegant tow…
Gardens & parks
Frankfurt am Main
The Palmengarten in Frankfurt am Main is one of Germany's best-known botanical gardens and a green escape just outside the city center. Spread over about 19 hectares (47 acres), it shows around 9,000 plant species outdoors and in historic…
Museums
Frankfurt am Main
The Senckenberg Natural History Museum (Senckenberg Naturmuseum) in Frankfurt am Main is one of the largest natural history museums in Europe and a favorite with families. A replica Tyrannosaurus rex greets you outside; inside are dinosaur…
Churches & monasteries
Leipzig
St. Nicholas Church (Nikolaikirche) in Leipzig is where the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 began. Weekly prayers for peace held inside this church grew into the Monday Demonstrations that helped bring down the East German regime and, ultimate…
Zoos
Frankfurt am Main
The Frankfurt Zoo (Zoo Frankfurt) in the city's Ostend district is the second-oldest zoo in Germany and one of the most popular family outings in Frankfurt am Main. Right at the eastern end of the Zeil shopping street, you can see gorillas…
Landmarks
Leipzig
The Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus) in Leipzig is the city's most photographed building and one of the finest Renaissance town halls in Germany. Its long facade, decorative gables, arcades and off-center tower dominate the Markt, Leipzig's m…