961 Best Sights in Germany

The remains of a Roman fortress built in AD 120, the Römerkastell-Saalburg could accommodate a cohort (500 men) and was part of the fortifications along the Limes Wall, which ran from the Danube to the Rhine and was meant to protect the Roman Empire from barbarian invasion. It was restored in the early 1900s under the direction of the Kaiser. The site, which includes a museum of Roman artifacts, is 6½ km (4 miles) north of Bad Homburg on Route 456 in the direction of Usingen; there's a direct bus from Bad Homburg. There's also a small café.

While excavating a 17th-century pilgrimage church, archaeologists uncovered a stout Roman fortress with five defence towers and walls more than 12 feet thick. The Roman citadel Boiotro was discovered on a hill known as the Mariahilfberg on the south bank of the river Inn, with its Roman well still plentiful and fresh. Pottery, lead figures, and other artifacts from the area are housed in this museum at the edge of the site.

While this archeological museum is closed for renovations until 2026, a selection of important treasures from its collection of ancient Roman artifacts is on view in the Belgian House, near the Neumarkt Galerie shopping mall. Among them are tombstones and busts from the 1st century, ancient glass vessels decorated with the trademark “Cologne Squiggle,” and everyday objects from Roman life. Placards are in both German and English.

For a look at 19th- and 20th-century rural life in the Mosel-Saar area, visit this hilltop Freilichtmuseum (open-air museum) near Konz-Saar, 10 km (6 miles) southwest of Trier via B-51. Numerous farmhouses and typical village buildings in the region were saved from the wrecking ball by being dismantled and brought to the Roscheider Hof, where they were rebuilt and refurnished as they appeared decades ago. Old schoolrooms, a barbershop and beauty salon, a tavern, a shoemaker's workshop, a pharmacy, a grocery, and a dentist's office have been set up in the rooms of the museum proper, along with period rooms and exhibitions on local trades and household work, such as the history of laundry. In addition to a large collection of tin figures, there's also a Biedermeier rose garden, a museum shop, and a restaurant with a beer garden (closed Monday) on the grounds.

Just offshore is the tiny island where King Maximilian II built a summer villa (called a casino). You can swim to the island's tree-fringed shores or sail across in a dinghy (rentals are available at Possenhofen's boatyard and at many other rental points along the lake). Visits to the casino are available by guided tour only. There is also a ferry service to take you over; the cost is €5 round-trip.

Within the medieval guildhall of the city's butchers, this museum has a rich collection of art and artifacts from the Bodensee region. Highlights include exhibits of the life and work of the people around the Bodensee, from the Bronze Age through the Middle Ages and beyond. There's also a collection of sculpture and altar paintings from the Middle Ages.

One of the island's best-known features is this dune cliff on the northern end of the Kampen beaches, which turns an eerie dark red when the sun sets.

Formerly known as the Reichsstadtmuseum (Imperial Town Museum), it is still housed in a former Dominican convent dating back to the 13th century, including a cloister where one of the artifacts is the great tankard, or Pokal, of the Meistertrunk. The town purchased the property in 1933 and converted it into a museum. Exhibits include hunting weapons used by Marie Antoinette, a hunting rifle belonging to Frederick the Great of Prussia, musical instruments and original Biedermeier room reconstructed from a Rothenburg townhouse from the early 1800s, and a gallery which explores Jewish life in Rothenberg from the 13th century to the Third Reich.

Freyburg is the home of one of Europe's largest producers of sparkling wine, a rare eastern German product with a significant market share in the West. Hour-long tours of the production facility include the world's largest wooden wine barrel. The visitor center is being renovated at this writing, and there are no public tours planned until Spring 2023, but it is worth checking back to see if they are offering anything during holidays.

Part of Bad Reichenhall's revival included building this new spa facility in 2009. Indoor and outdoor pools in the Therme section are fed by the saline deposits beneath the city; families with children will appreciate the salt-free kids' pool and slide. Saunas and steam rooms are rounded off with a host of special applications using salt, essential oils, mud packs, and massages. The Therme can be popular, especially in winter, so online reservations for any spa services are a good idea

The sandstone church is on the corner of Robert Koch Strasse and Lichtentaler Strasse. The Russian diaspora community in Baden-Baden consecrated it in 1882; it's identifiable by its gold onion dome.

Holding medieval and Renaissance suits of armor and weapons, the Rüstkammer is in two parts: the main exhibitt and the Türckische Cammer, both in the Residenzschloss.

One of the region's main attractions, this salt mine was once owned by Berchtesgaden's princely rulers. Where once only select guests were allowed to see how the source of the city's wealth was extracted from the earth, today an hour-long tour will transport you via a miniature train nearly 1 km (½ mile) into the mountain to an enormous chamber where the salt is mined. Included in the tour are rides down the wooden chutes used by miners to get from one level to another and a boat ride on an underground saline lake the size of a football field. You may wish to partake in the special four-hour brine dinners down in the mines. These are very popular, so be sure to book early.

Around 180 German 19th-century paintings from the Romantic era up to the periods of realism and symbolism make up the collections of the Sammlung Schack, originally the private collection of Count Adolf Friedrich von Schack.

This small fishing town is the island's harbor for ferries to Sweden. Sassnitz is surrounded by some of the most pristine nature to be found along the Baltic Coast. Ten kilometers (6 miles) north of Sassnitz are the twin chalk cliffs of Rügen's main attraction, the Stubbenkammer headland. From here you can best see the much-photographed white-chalk cliffs called the Königstuhl, rising 350 feet from the sea. A steep trail leads down to a beach.

This elegant 18th-century city palace was built by the von Liebenhofens, a family of wealthy bankers. Schaezler was the name of a baron who married into the family. Today the palace rooms contain the Deutsche Barockgalerie (German Baroque Gallery), a major art collection that features works of the 17th and 18th centuries. The palace adjoins the former church of a Dominican monastery. A steel door behind the banquet hall leads into another world of high-vaulted ceilings, where the Staatsgalerie Altdeutsche Meister, a Bavarian state collection, highlights old-master paintings, among them a Dürer portrait of one of the Fuggers. 

Besides its beer and spirits, Ettal has made another local industry into an attraction, namely cheese, yogurt, butter, and other milk derivatives. You can see them in the making at this public cheese-making plant. Tours are offered daily at 11 as long as there's a minimum five people to take part.

Germany's largest ice caves lie 10 km (6 miles) north of Berchtesgaden. By car take B-305 to the village of Marktschellenberg and park at the Eishöhlenparkplatz near the B160 bus stop, or take Bus 840 to the Eishöhle stop from the Berchtesgaden train station or Salzburg Hbf. From there you can reach the caves on foot by walking 3½ hours along the clearly marked route. A guided tour of the caves takes about 45 minutes (tours run from 10 am to 4 pm; till 3 pm in October). On the way to Marktschellenberg watch for the Almbachklamm, a narrow valley that is good for hikes. At its entrance is an old (1683) mill for making and polishing marbles.

Housed in a listed hall of the old fish market, this museum pays tribute to Kiel's impressive maritime history as a port city, as a naval and shipyard location, and as a place of sailing sports. 

This green-shuttered residence, part of the Goethe Nationalmuseum, is on a tree-shaded square not far from Goethe's house. Schiller and his family spent a happy, all-too-brief three years here (he died here in 1805). Schiller's study is tucked underneath the mansard roof, a cozy room dominated by his desk, where he probably completed Wilhelm Tell. Much of the remaining furniture and the collection of books were added later, although they all date from around Schiller's time.

This walkway starts just above the Alte Brücke opposite the Old Town and cuts steeply through terraced vineyards until it reaches the woods, where it crosses the Philosophenweg (Philosophers' Path).

This castle and the magnificent pleasure park that surrounds it were created in the time of Prince Clemens August, between 1725 and 1768. The palace contains one of the most famous achievements of rococo architecture, a staircase by Balthasar Neumann. The castle can be visited only on guided tours, which leave the reception area every hour or so. An English-language recorded tour is available.

The last royal resident of the Berchtesgaden abbey, Crown Prince Rupprecht (who died here in 1955), furnished it with rare family treasures that now form the basis of this permanent collection. Fine Renaissance rooms exhibit the prince's sacred art, which is particularly rich in wood sculptures by such great late-Gothic artists as Tilman Riemenschneider and Veit Stoss. There are two weaponry rooms exhibiting hunting tools, including rifles from the 19th century, and a beautiful rose garden out back. You can also visit the abbey's original, cavernous, 13th-century dormitory and cool cloisters. Castle visits are only possible on an hour-long guided tour, held Monday to Thursday at 11 am and 2 pm and Friday at 11 am. Check online in advance, as the Wittelsbach heir still occasionally stops by for a visit, at which times the castle is closed to visitors.

This sprawling country estate consists of a beautiful early-18th-century Schloss, a manor house, and grounds complete with a working farm—all of which are quite a contrast to the stark, modernist 1960s and 1970s housing that fills the Britz neighborhood. Don’t miss the small research library in the manor’s attic or the restaurant located in the so-called Schweizer Haus, the old dairyman’s living quarters, and manned by Matthias Buchholz, a Michelin-starred chef who left a career in Berlin’s top restaurants to make something of this local outpost. The Museum Neukölln is on the grounds, too, in the former cow stalls of the Schloss Britz, and you'll also find special exhibitions (such as Toulouse-Lautrec posters) inside the Schloss.

Perched on a hill 5 km (3 miles) west of Coburg, this was, until 1231, the main castle of the Knights of Callenberg. In the 16th century it was taken over by the Dukes of Coburg. From 1842 on it served as the summer residence of the hereditary Coburg prince and later Duke Ernst II. It holds a number of important collections, including that of the Windsor gallery; arts and crafts from Holland, Germany, and Italy from the Renaissance to the 19th century; precious baroque, Empire, and Biedermeier furniture; table and standing clocks from three centuries; a selection of weapons; and various handicrafts. The best way to reach the castle is by car via Baiersdorf. City Bus No. 5 from Coburg's Marktplatz stops at the castle only on Sunday; on other days you need to get off at the Beirsdorf stop and walk for 25 minutes.

Resembling a rambling Tudor manor house, Schloss Cecilienhof was built for Crown Prince Wilhelm in 1913, on what was then the newly laid-out stretch of park called the Neuer Garten. It was here, in the last palace built by the Hohenzollerns, that the leaders of the allied forces—Stalin, Truman, and Churchill (later Attlee)—hammered out the fate of postwar Germany at the 1945 Potsdam Conference.

A grand reminder of imperial days, this showplace served as a city residence for the Prussian rulers. In the 18th century, Frederick the Great made a number of additions, such as the dome and several wings designed in the Rococo style. By 1790 the complex had evolved into a massive royal domain that could take a whole day to explore. The Altes Schloss is the main building of the Schloss Charlottenburg complex, with the ground-floor suites of Friedrich I and Sophie-Charlotte. Paintings include royal portraits by Antoine Pesne, a noted court painter of the 18th century. The upper floor has the apartments of Friedrich Wilhelm IV; a silver treasury and Berlin and Meissen porcelain can be seen on its own. The Neuer Flügel (New Building), where Frederick the Great once lived, was designed by Knobelsdorff, who also built Sanssouci, and houses a ballroom called the Golden Gallery and the Silver Vault with beautiful tableware (Silver Vault closed for remodeling work at the time of this writing). The lovely gardens include a mausoleum and the Belvedere tea house, which holds a porcelain collection.

After Frederick the Great died in 1786, the ambitious Sanssouci building program ground to a halt, and the park fell into neglect. It was 50 years before another Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, restored Sanssouci's earlier glory, engaging the great Berlin architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel to build the small Schloss Charlottenhof for the crown prince. Schinkel's demure interiors are preserved, and the most fanciful room is the bedroom, decorated like a Roman tent, with walls and ceiling draped in striped canvas. Friedrich Wilhelm IV also commissioned the Römische Bäder (Roman Baths), about a five-minute walk north of Schloss Charlottenhof. It was also designed by Schinkel, and built between 1829 and 1840. Like many other structures in Potsdam, this one is more romantic than authentic. Half Italian villa, half Greek temple, it is nevertheless a charming addition to the park.