937 Best Sights in Germany

Near the town hall and church in the upper part of town is the little Hauffs Märchenmuseum, devoted to the crafts and life around Baiersbronn and the fairy tale author William Hauff (1802–27). There’s no English-language signposting, but videos and a play area for kids offer a worthy stop, especially on a rainy day. Daily hours can be limited, so check with the tourist office.

With 26 platforms, Leipzig's main train station is Europe's largest railhead. It was built in 1915 and is now a protected monument, but modern commerce rules in its bi-level shopping mall, the Promenaden. Many of the shops and restaurants stay open until 10 pm and are open on Sunday. Thanks to the historic backdrop, this is one of the most beautiful shopping experiences in Saxony.

The train station isn't a cultural site, but it's a particularly handy starting point for exploring. The city tourist office here has maps and helpful information on events around town. On the underground level are all sorts of shops and fast food restaurants that remain open even on Sunday and holidays. The station has been under construction for a while which may cause some trouble with finding places.

Nuremberg's central market square was once the city's Jewish Quarter. In 1349, Emperor Charles IV instigated a pogrom that left the Jewish Quarter in flames and more than 500 dead. He razed the ruins and resettled the remaining Jews so he could build this square. Towering over the northwestern corner, Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain) looks as though it should be on the summit of some lofty cathedral. Carved around the year 1400, the elegant 60-foot-high Gothic fountain is adorned with 40 figures arranged in tiers—prophets, saints, local noblemen, electors, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great. A golden ring set into the railing is said to bring good luck to those who touch it. A market still operates here on weekdays, with its colorful stands piled high with produce, fruit, bread, homemade cheeses and sausages, sweets, and anything else you might need for a snack or picnic. This square is also the site of the famous Christkindlesmarkt.

The attractive baroque building with a steeply sloping roof is the actual Hauptwache (Main Guardhouse), from which the square takes its name. The 1729 building was partly demolished to permit excavation for a vast underground shopping mall. It was then restored to its original appearance and is now considered the heart of the Frankfurt pedestrian shopping area. The outdoor patio of the building's restaurant-café is a popular people-watching spot on the Zeil.

This modest, cubical structure designed by Georg Muche for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition is the first structure constructed using the Bauhaus’s new philosophy of functional modernity. The house is a small cubist structure comprised of concrete and stone walls with a flat roof and is a model for the Meisterhäuser in Dessau. All of the furniture was created specifically for the house by students of the Bauhaus design school.

Built in the 1920s, when an earlier Berlin art scene was at its peak, this villa officially became an exhibition space in 1946, just as Germany was recovering from the war. Today, it stays true to its mission as both a museum for contemporary art and an expansive sculpture park—albeit one a good many Berlin visitors don’t know about. The Haus presents a wide range of work by contemporary artists of international acclaim who are from Berlin or live here in up to five exhibitions each year. The juxtaposition of the contemporary and avant-garde with the nearly 100-year-old villa is well worth the trek out from the center of town.

This popular information center and educational museum in the heart of Berchtesgaden, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, brings the surrounding national park to life for children and adults alike. The interactive exhibition focuses on the wildlife and diverse nature to be found in Germany's only Alpine national park, divided into four main habitats: water, forest, alpine pasture, and rock. There's also a library, a cinema, and a restaurant with mountain views, making it a great rainy-day option for families.

German history since World War II is the subject of this museum, which begins with \"hour zero,\" as the Germans call the unconditional surrender of 1945. The museum displays an overwhelming amount of documentary material organized on five levels and engages various types of media. You can even step inside a re-created 1950s ice-cream parlor, complete with an interactive jukebox. An audio guide in English is available.

This museum makes a valiant attempt to evaluate the history of the GDR. It provides fascinating insight into the day-to-day culture of East Germans through the re-creation of a typical East German apartment, and a display of more than 20,000 objects, including detergent packaging and kitchen appliances. A special section deals with Germans and Russians in the Wittenberg region.

Off the Spree River and bordering the Kanzleramt (Chancellery) is the former congress hall, now serving as the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures). It is fondly referred to as the "pregnant oyster" because the sweeping, 1950s design of its roof resembles a shellfish opening. Thematic exhibits, festivals, and concerts take place here, and it's also a boarding point for Spree River cruises.

The lovely lakeside setting of this Berlin villa belies the unimaginable Holocaust atrocities planned here. This elegant edifice hosted the fateful conference held on January 20, 1942, at which Nazi leaders and German bureaucrats, under SS leader Reinhard Heydrich, planned the systematic deportation and mass extinction of Europe's Jewish population. Today this so-called \"Endlösung der Judenfrage\" (final solution of the Jewish question) is illustrated with a chilling exhibit that documents the conference and, more extensively, the escalation of persecution against Jews and the Holocaust itself. A reference library offers source materials in English.

Dating to 1729, this house belonged to a wealthy merchant and is now considered one of the most beautiful in the Bodensee region, owing to its rich decor of frescoes. Today it serves as a local history museum, with collections of glass and pewter items, paintings, and furniture from the past five centuries, alongside touring exhibitions. Now closed due to renovation, it is due to reopen at an unspecified date, probably sometime in 2025, but a reopening date has not been announced at this writing.

One kilometer (½ mile) northwest of town lies the Heidenmauer, the remains of an ancient Celtic ring wall more than 2 km (1 mile) in circumference and up to 20 feet thick in parts. The remnants are on the Kastanienberg, above the quarry. Nearby are the rock drawings at Kriemhildenstuhl, an old Roman quarry where the legionnaires of Mainz excavated sandstone.

Take a look inside the entrance hall of this Gothic building. It was built in the 13th century by the town's rich merchants and was one of the country's first hospitals. It still cares for the sick and elderly.

The foundation stone of this Gothic church was laid in 1398, but it was not actually finished until 1544. The gargoyles looking down on the south side (where Hauptstrasse crosses Marktplatz) are remarkable for their sheer ugliness. The church fell victim to plundering by the Catholic League during the Thirty Years' War, when the church's greatest treasure—the Bibliotheca Palatina, at the time the largest library in Germany—was loaded onto 500 carts and trundled off to the Vatican. Few volumes found their way back. At the end of the 17th century, French troops plundered the church again, destroying the tombs; only the 15th-century tomb of Elector Ruprecht III and his wife, Elisabeth von Hohenzollern, remain. Today, the huge church is shared by Heidelberg's Protestant and Catholic populations.

This museum and archive houses significant manuscripts of the German poet and man of letters, Heinrich Heine. Part of the complex was once the residence of the composer Robert Schumann.

Ask anyone where to find the Church of St. Peter and Paul and they will give you a confused look, but everyone knows the church associated with the philosopher Wilhelm Gottfried Herder. The Marktplatz's late-Gothic church has a large winged altar started by Lucas Cranach the Elder and finished by his son in 1555. The elder Cranach lived in a nearby house (two blocks east of Theaterplatz) during his last years, 1552–53. Its wide, imposing facade is richly decorated and bears the coat of arms of the Cranach family, but almost none of the gothic interior remains. The church also houses a modern art gallery.

The museum recounts the life of the Nobel Prize–winning writer Hermann Hesse, author of Steppenwolf and Siddharta, who rebelled against his middle-class German upbringing to become a pacifist and the darling of the Beat Generation. The museum tells the story of his life in personal belongings, photographs, manuscripts, and other documents. The museum is closed for renovations until 2026.

With Schloss Neuenberg looming above, there is no more picturesque place to stop for a glass of wine or tour when you are exploring the Unstrut Valley than this serene terraced vineyard with its well-preserved baroque 18th-century vineyard house. The vintners welcome visitors for a tour of the vineyards every day at 11 from April to October. The highlight is the relaxed tasting area with generous pours and picnic lunches available to enjoy in the garden.

The museum occupies a grandiose Art Nouveau and neo-renaissance-style building complete with tower, telling the story of the North Hesse region over three floors. The permanent collection ranges from exhibits left by the region's first human inhabitants, to the Middle Ages, to the times of the landgraves, to the present. There's a great view from the top of the tower.

Below the waterworks and outside the walls, this reddish-brown house was one of the only structures to survive all the city's fires—leading Bautzeners to conclude that it could only be occupied by witches. There's an exhibition, open every on the 1st and 3rd Sunday every the month.

The Hexenturm was originally constructed in the 15th century as a watchtower to protect the town from invaders. What remains today is an imposing 9 meters (30 feet) in diameter and 24-meter-high (79 feet) tower, which was used as a grim prison during the time when Gelnhausen was the center of a witch hunt in the late 16th century. Dozens of women were either burned at the stake or bound hand-and-foot and then thrown into the Kinzig River after being held prisoner here. The watchtower can only be visited as part of a guided tour booked with the tourist office.

An imperial palace once stood in this park just north of the cathedral. It was the site of the fateful 1521 meeting between Luther and Emperor Charles V that ultimately led to the Reformation. Luther refused to recant his theses demanding Church reforms and went into exile in Eisenach, where he translated the New Testament in 1521 and 1522.

Just 5 km (3 miles) off the northwest corner of Rügen is a smaller, sticklike island called Hiddensee whose undisturbed solitude has attracted such visitors as Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Sigmund Freud. As Hiddensee is an auto-free zone, leave your car in Schaprode, 21 km (13 miles) west of Bergen, and take a ferry. Reederei Hiddensee ( 038300/210  reederei-hiddensee.de) makes the 45-minute trip from Schaprode on Rügen to Vitte on Hiddensee up to thirteen times a day, with other departures from Stralsund. They also serve the towns of Kloster and Neuendorf on Hiddensee. Fares start at €22.80 return. Vacation cottages and restaurants are on the island.

Three kilometers (2 miles) north of Calw, Hirsau has ruins of a 9th-century monastery, now the setting for a museum and the Klostersommer open-air concerts in July and August. Buy advance tickets for the concerts at the Calw tourist office.

Peenemünde, at the northwest tip of Usedom, is the launch site of the world's first ballistic missiles, the V-1 and V-2, developed by Germany during World War II. At the Historisch-Technisches Museum you can view these rockets as well as models of early airplanes and ships. One exhibit, in particular, covers the moral responsibility of scientists who develop new technology by focusing on the secret plants where most of the rocket parts were assembled, and where thousands of slave laborers died.

Wolfgang Steffens conducts half-hour daily tours at 11, 2, 3, and 4, showing how he produces the gourmet mustard at his 200-year-old mill. Garlic, cayenne, honeycomb, Indian curry, and Riesling wine are among the flavors you can sample and buy in the shop.

Goethe and Schiller are buried in this leafy cemetery, where virtually every gravestone commemorates a famous citizen of Weimar. Their tombs are in the vault of the classical-style chapel. The cemetery is a short walk past Goethehaus and Wieland Platz.

The municipal museum vividly relates the cultural history of Regensburg. It's one of the highlights of the city, both for its unusual and beautiful setting—a former Gothic monastery—and for its wide-ranging collections, from Roman artifacts to Renaissance tapestries and remains from Regensburg's 16th-century Jewish ghetto. The most significant exhibits are the paintings by Albrecht Altdorfer (1480–1538), a native of Regensburg and, along with Cranach, Grünewald, and Dürer, one of the leading painters of the German Renaissance. Altdorfer's work has the same sense of heightened reality found in that of his contemporaries, in which the lessons of Italian painting are used to produce an emotional rather than a rational effect; his drawings of Regensburg's old synagogue, exhibited here, are priceless documents.