Discover places worth seeing — from historic sites to mountain trails.
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…
Old towns & squares
Frankfurt am Main
The New Frankfurt Old Town (Neue Frankfurter Altstadt), between the cathedral and Römerberg square, is the youngest and one of the most photographed parts of Frankfurt am Main. Built between 2012 and 2018 on the site of a 1970s concrete of…
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…
Museums
Leipzig
The Bach Museum Leipzig occupies the Baroque Bose House on St. Thomas Churchyard, right across from the church where Johann Sebastian Bach served as cantor for 27 years. Original manuscripts, a historic organ console and interactive media…
Museums
Leipzig
The Leipzig Panometer is a former gas holder in the south of Leipzig where artist Yadegar Asisi displays his gigantic 360-degree panoramas. You climb a viewing tower in the middle of the round hall and find yourself surrounded by a strikin…
Landmarks
Leipzig
Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig is probably the most famous restaurant in Germany. Goethe immortalized this vaulted wine cellar beneath the Mädler Passage in his drama "Faust," and visitors from around the world still come to dine where the le…
Museums
Leipzig
The Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (Museum der bildenden Künste, or MdbK) is one of Germany's major art museums, housed in a striking glass cube in the middle of the old town. Its collection runs from late medieval art and Old Masters such as…
Landmarks
Aachen
Aachen Town Hall stands on the market square in Germany's westernmost major city, built on the foundations of Charlemagne's royal hall. For six centuries the coronation banquets of German kings were held here after their crowning in the ca…
Lakes
Münster
Fifteen minutes on foot from the Prinzipalmarkt and suddenly there is open space: the Aasee stretches for about 2.3 kilometres from the edge of the old town to the south-west, lined with meadows, plane trees and lakeside paths. For locals…
Churches & monasteries
Glees
Maria Laach Abbey (Abtei Maria Laach) stands on the southwest shore of Lake Laach in the Eifel volcanic region and is famed for its six-towered Romanesque basilica, one of the finest in Germany. The Benedictine abbey was founded in 1093 an…
Churches & monasteries
Marienmünster
Marienmünster Abbey (Abtei Marienmünster) is a former Benedictine monastery founded in 1128 in the rolling Weser Uplands of eastern North Rhine-Westphalia. Its church, with twin pointed west towers and a Baroque crossing dome, rises above…
Churches & monasteries
Mettlach
Mettlach Abbey on the Saar River is a former Benedictine monastery and today the headquarters of Villeroy & Boch, the ceramics company. Inside the Baroque Old Abbey a modern visitor experience about ceramics awaits you, and in the abbey pa…
Churches & monasteries
Tholey
On 30 December 634 a Frankish nobleman named Adalgisel Grimo drew up his will, bequeathing his property in Tholey along with a church he had built there. The document is considered the oldest surviving charter of the Rhineland and makes St…
Zoos
Salem
A few kilometres from Lake Constance, a monkey suddenly sits across from you at the side of the path, scratches its head and ignores you. At Affenberg Salem almost 200 Barbary macaques live in more than 20 hectares of woodland, with no fen…
Museums
Nürnberg
Albrecht Dürer's House in Nuremberg is the former home and workshop of Germany's most celebrated Renaissance artist. Dürer lived and worked in this striking half-timbered house by the Tiergärtnertor gate for almost two decades. Today it is…
Castles
Meißen
Albrechtsburg Castle in Meissen is often called the first true palace built in Germany, and it is where Europe's first porcelain factory began. Set on a rocky hill above the Elbe River next to Meissen Cathedral, the late Gothic residence m…
Old towns & squares
Berlin
Alexanderplatz in Berlin's Mitte district, known to locals simply as "Alex," is one of the most famous squares in the German capital and a major transport hub. It is where the TV Tower, the World Clock, and the fountain of the former East…
Landmarks
Potsdam
A few minutes north of Potsdam's centre you suddenly come across dark timber houses with carved gables, balconies and gardens, as if a Russian village had been moved here. Alexandrowka is a Russian colony that King Frederick William III of…
Waterfalls
Oppenau
The All Saints Waterfalls (Allerheiligen-Wasserfälle) near Oppenau are the largest natural waterfalls in the northern Black Forest. The Grindenbach stream tumbles down seven cascades through a narrow rocky gorge, and a trail of stairs and…
Theme parks
Rammingen
The Allgäu Skyline Park in Rammingen, near the spa town of Bad Wörishofen in Bavaria, is one of the largest amusement parks in southern Germany. It sits right beside the A96 autobahn, roughly 50 miles (80 km) west of Munich, and its towers…