961 Best Sights in Germany

Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in this bourgeois house built in 1727. Visitors with a serious interest in social history will be fascinated by its small museum. Some of Marx's personal effects, as well as first-edition manifestos are on display. Audio guides are available in English.

In 1728, Eustachius Föderl opened an inn and beer garden here, which might be how the square came to be called Stachus—it's still called that by the locals although both are long gone. One of Munich's most popular fountains is here. It’s a magnet on hot summer days and makes way for an ice-skating rink in winter. Karlsplatz is a bustling meeting point, even more so because of the underground shopping center.

This lovely church, in the baroque style from crypt to cupola, stands next to the Alte Kapelle. It has a finely decorated facade designed by the 17th-century Italian master Carlo Lurago.

Two baroque altars dominate the interior of the Gothic Karmeliterkirche on Karmeliterstrasse, near the Rhine. It houses intricately carved choir stalls and tombstones and several beautiful Madonnas. Winegrowers still observe the old custom of laying the first-picked Trauben (grapes) at the foot of the Traubenmadonna (1330) to ensure a good harvest.

On the way to Oppenheim, the vine-covered hills parallel to the Rhine gradually steepen. Then, unexpectedly, the spires of Oppenheim's Gothic St. Catherine's Church come into view. The contrast of its pink sandstone facade against a bright blue sky is striking. Built between 1225 and 1439, it's the most important Gothic church between Strasbourg and Cologne. The interior affords a rare opportunity to admire magnificent original 14th-century stained-glass windows including two rose windows, the Lily Window and the Oppenheim Rose. The church houses masterfully carved tombstones, and the chapel behind it has a Beinhaus (charnel house) containing the bones of 20,000 citizens and soldiers from the 15th to 18th century.

The works of Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), the most important German female artist of the 20th century, focus on social themes like the plight of the poor and the atrocities of war. This is the larger of the country's two Kollwitz collections and comprises all of her woodcuts, as well as paintings, etchings, lithographs, and sculptures. There are also changing exhibits of other modern artists.

The largest Catholic church in Saxony is also known as the Cathedral of St. Trinitatis. Frederick Augustus II (who reigned 1733–63) brought architects and builders from Italy to construct a Catholic church in a city that had been the first large center of Lutheran Protestantism (like his father, Frederick Augustus II had to convert to Catholicism to be eligible to wear the Polish crown). The bridge between the residence and the church was the way for August to attend mass without being seen by the public. Inside, the treasures include a beautiful stone pulpit by the royal sculptor Balthasar Permoser and a painstakingly restored 250-year-old organ, said to be one of the finest ever to come from the mountain workshops of the famous Silbermann family. There is a small, yet powerful memorial to the bombing of Dresden in the nave to the rear. In the cathedral's crypt are the tombs of 49 Saxon rulers and a reliquary containing the heart of Augustus the Strong, which is rumored to start beating if a beautiful woman comes near.

Perched dramatically on the northern edge of St. Martin against a backdrop of vineyards, this late-Gothic church was thought to have been built around 1200 (the interior was renovated in the mid-1980s). Renaissance tombstones and a Madonna sculpture carved from a single piece of oak are among the intriguing artworks found inside.

Built in 1912–13, Germany's only original art nouveau department store has a main hall with a colorful glass cupola and several stunning freestanding staircases. The store dominates the Marienplatz, a small square outside the city center that serves as Görlitz's transportation hub. It's next to the 15th-century Frauenkirche, the parish church for the nearby hospital and the poor condemned to live outside the city walls. In 2013 a private investor purchased the building with plans to renovate it and open a high-end department store. At this writing, the building is still being restored, but there is no concrete date to reopen it. It may be possible to look around the inside during the renovation.

Supported by seven Gothic gables, the Kaysersches Haus the carved oak doorway is from the Renaissance.

A friendly husband-and-wife team run this winery, which has eight generations of winemaking tradition behind it. They make a special collection of rieslings with labels designed by visiting artists, and have an unpretentious tasting room close to the river.

At Germany's largest passenger-shipping harbor, you can always catch a glimpse of one of the many ferries leaving for Norway from the Oslokai (Oslo Quay) or for Göteborg from the Schwedenkai (Sweden Quay).

Germany's first children's museum has interactive exhibits to help explain science and technology, including a walk-through heart.

Perched high above the river is one of Saxony's largest late-Gothic churches, dating to 1423. The real draw is the church's famous one-of-a-kind organ, built in 1703 by Eugenio Casparini. The Sun Organ gets its name from the circularly arranged pipes and not from the golden sun at the center. Its full and deep sound, as well as its birdcalls, can be heard on Sunday and Wednesday afternoons.

The area around the Krämerbrücke, crisscrossed with old streets lined with picturesque, often crumbling, homes and shops, is known as Little Venice because of the small streams and recurrent flooding it endures.

This unique interactive museum takes visitors through nine stations covering the various climatic regions of the Earth. The history of the climate—ranging from the origins of the Earth 3.9 billion years ago and looking forward to the year 2050—is on display in this museum dedicated to helping visitors understand what factors determine the weather and the climate. Located directly on the seafront, it also has information about an offshore wind farm that puts the city's relationship to the sea and the changing climate into perspective.

This abbey, which some call the "holy mountain of Bavaria," sits majestically on the west bank of the Main river north of Bamberg. There had been a monastery here since 1069, but the present buildings—now a political-seminar center and think tank—date from the end of the 17th century. The highlight of the complex is the Klosterkirche (Abbey Church), the work of architect Leonard Dientzenhofer and his brother, the stuccoist Johann Dientzenhofer (1663–1726). Balthasar Neumann later contributed a good deal of work. Concerts are occasionally held in the church, including some by members of the renowned Bamberger Symphoniker.

The little town of Maulbronn, 45 km (28 miles) due east of Karlsruhe, is home to the best-preserved medieval monastery north of the Alps; its entire complex of 30 buildings is on UNESCO's World Heritage list. The name Maulbronn (Mule Fountain) derives from a legend. Monks seeking a suitably watered site for their monastery considered it a sign from God when one of their mules discovered and drank at a spring. The Kloster is also known for inventing the Maultasche, a kind of large ravioli. The monks thought that by coloring the meat filling green by adding parsley and wrapping it inside a pasta pocket, they could hide it from God on fasting days. Today the Maultasche is the cornerstone of Swabian cuisine. An audio guide in English is available.

Overlooking the suburb of Grethen are the ruins of Kloster Limburg. Emperor Konrad II laid the cornerstone in 1030, supposedly on the same day that he laid the cornerstone of the Kaiserdom in Speyer. The monastery was never completely rebuilt after a fire in 1504, but it's a majestic backdrop for open-air performances in the summer months.

Fifteen of Wiesbaden's 26 springs converge at the steaming Kochbrunnen Fountain, where the sulfurous but at least theoretically healthful waters are there for the tasting.

Named for the painter, sculptor, and political activist Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), who lived nearby, the square is the center of the old working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg. Kollwitz, who portrayed the hard times of area residents, is immortalized here in a sculpture based on a self-portrait. Ironically, this image of the artist now has a view of the upwardly mobile young families who have transformed the neighborhood since reunification. Bars and restaurants peel off from the square, and one of the best organic markets in town takes over on weekends.

The origins of the official art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne stretch back to 1853, but the institution received a big boost in 2007, with the opening of a new home atop the ruins of the Gothic parish church of St. Kolumba. Designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the new building pays homage to the site's Roman, Gothic, and medieval heritage, while unstuffily presenting a collection of art spanning from late antiquity to the present.

On the lake's eastern shore, at the village of Berg, you'll find the König Ludwig II Votivkapelle Berg. A well-marked path leads through thick woods to the chapel, built near the point in the lake where the drowned king's body was found on June 13, 1886. He had been confined in nearby Berg Castle after the Bavarian government took action against his withdrawal from reality and his bankrupting castle-building fantasies. A cross in the lake marks the point where his body was recovered.

Bavaria's greatest monarch, Ludwig I, was obsessed with antiquity, and the impressive buildings designed by Leo von Klenze that line this elegant square bear testament to that. Two temple-like structures face each other, the Staatliche Antikensammlungen (an acclaimed collection of Greek and Roman antiquities) and the Glyptothek (a fine collection of Greek and Roman statues). After WWII, Munich authorities restored the park and the broad green lawns in front of the museums attract students and tourists in the warmer months for concerts, films, and other events. This area became the national center of the Nazi Party in the 1930s and '40s. Destroyed in the war, the new Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism (NS-Dokumentationszentrum) opened in 2015 at Max-Mannheimer-Platz 1. On Arcisstrasse 12 is the Nazi-era building (now a music school) where in 1938 Britain's prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, infamously thought he had negotiated "peace in our time" with Hitler.

One less strenuous way into the Berchtesgaden National Park is via electric boat. Only the skipper of these excursion boats is allowed to shatter the silence on the Königssee (King's Lake)—his trumpet fanfare demonstrates a remarkable echo as notes reverberate between the almost vertical cliffs that plunge into the dark green water. A cross on a rocky promontory marks the spot where a boatload of pilgrims hit the cliffs and sank more than 100 years ago. The voyagers were on their way to the tiny, twin-tower baroque chapel of St. Bartholomä, built in the 17th century on a peninsula where an early-Gothic church once stood. The princely rulers of Berchtesgaden built a hunting lodge at the side of the chapel; a tavern and restaurant now occupy its rooms.

Smaller than the Königssee but equally beautiful, the Obersee can be reached by a 15-minute walk from the second stop (Salet) on the boat tour. The lake's backdrop of jagged mountains and precipitous cliffs is broken by a waterfall, the Rothbachfall, which plunges more than 1,000 feet to the valley floor.

Boat service on the Königssee runs year-round, except when the lake freezes. A round-trip to St. Bartholomä and Salet, the landing stage for the Obersee, lasts almost two hours, without stops. A round-trip to St. Bartholomä lasts a little over an hour. In summer, the Berchtesgaden tourist office organizes evening cruises on the Königssee, which include a concert in St. Bartholomä Church and a four-course dinner in the neighboring hunting lodge.

The second-highest hill in the Odenwald range—1,800 feet above Heidelberg—is only a hop, skip, and funicular ride from Heidelberg. On a clear day you can see as far as the Black Forest to the south and west to the Vosges Mountains of France. The hill is at the center of a close-knit network of hiking trails. Well-marked trails from the top lead hikers through the woods of the Odenwald.

An impressive reminder of Trier's Roman past, this edifice, now the city's major Protestant church, was built by the emperor Constantine around AD 310 as the imperial throne room of the palace. At 239 feet long, 93 feet wide, and 108 feet high, it demonstrates the astounding ambition of its Roman builders and the sophistication of their building techniques. The basilica is one of the two largest Roman interiors in existence (the other is the Pantheon in Rome). Look up at the deeply coffered ceiling; more than any other part of the building, it conveys the opulence of the original structure. An ornate rococo garden now separates the basilica from the Landesmuseum.