Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
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…
Viewpoints
Berlin
The Berlin Victory Column (Siegessäule) is one of the German capital's great landmarks: a 67-meter column rising from the Grosser Stern roundabout in the middle of the Tiergarten park, topped by a gilded statue of the goddess Victoria that…
Gardens & parks
Berlin
Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin is the former airfield of Tempelhof Airport, now one of the largest inner-city open spaces in the world. Locals come here to skate and cycle down old runways, fly kites, barbecue, and watch the sunset over more t…
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…
Gardens & parks
Kassel
Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel is Europe's largest hillside park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2013. A giant copper Hercules statue crowns the hilltop, and below it a chain of cascades, waterfalls and a fountain more than 50 mete…
Gardens & parks
München
The Olympiapark in Munich, built for the 1972 Summer Olympics, is one of the city's most popular green spaces and a landmark of modern architecture. Its sweeping, transparent tent roof, a lake, a hill made from wartime rubble and wide lawn…
Old towns & squares
München
The Viktualienmarkt in Munich is the city's famous open-air food market, set right in the Old Town just a few minutes' walk from Marienplatz. For more than 200 years, locals have shopped here for fruit, vegetables, cheese, meat and flowers…
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…
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…
Landmarks
Hamburg
The St. Pauli Piers (Landungsbrücken) in Hamburg are the city's floating harbor terminal and one of the top things to do in Hamburg. Behind a long stone hall crowned with green copper domes, ferries, harbor cruise boats and launches come a…
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…
Gardens & parks
Hamburg
Planten un Blomen is Hamburg's central city park, a free green space of about 47 hectares (116 acres) stretching from Dammtor station past the trade fair grounds to St. Pauli. The Low German name simply means "plants and flowers." With a J…