937 Best Sights in Germany

Construction of the cathedral began in the mid-11th century. Its two prominent towers, one of which can be climbed, are Gothic, but in the late 1800s the cathedral was restored in the Romanesque style. It served as the seat of an archbishop until the Reformation turned the cathedral Protestant. It has a small museum and five functioning organs. On Saturdays at 12:30 there are guided tours of the cathedral.

This church was created in 1195 and has been in continuous use since then. St. Petri is the only one of the five main churches in Hamburg that came out of World War II relatively undamaged. The current building was built in 1849, after the previous building burned down in the Great Fire of 1842. Every Wednesday at 5:15 pm is the Stunde der Kirchenmusik, an hour of liturgical organ music.

The 800-year-old church was built on the highest elevation in the region. Its tower once served the island's fishermen as a beacon. Strangely enough, the tower also served as a prison until 1806. Now a Lutheran church, it is a popular site for weddings.

This Gothic church has an extraordinary font, a masterpiece of intricately carved sandstone that reaches practically to the ceiling. It's linked to the cathedral by a 70-step open staircase.

The parish church of St. Wenceslas dominates the southern end of the Markt. A church has stood on this spot since 1218, but the current incarnation dates from 1426, with interior renovations in 1726. The church is most famous for its huge Hildebrandt Organ, which was tested and tuned by J. S. Bach in 1746. Fans of Lucas Cranach the Elder get their due with two of his paintings, Suffer the Little Children Come Unto Me and the Adoration of the Three Magi. The 240-foot-tall tower belongs to the city, not the church, and was used as a watchtower for the city guards, who lived there until 1994.

The Staatliche Antikensammlung, which is housed in a \"temple of art\" built by Georg Friedrich Ziebland between 1838 and 1848, showcases works of art and everyday objects dating back to the 3rd century BC. Known as pieces of minor art, the collection of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities comprises objects made of ceramics, metal, and stone. The museum's other branch, the Glyptothek, is located across the Staatliche Antikensammlung and solely displays ancient sculpture; it has a lovely café in its courtyard.

More than 300,000 coins, banknotes, medals, and precious stones, some 5,000 years old, are among the treasures of the Bavarian State Coin Collection.

Outgrowing its castle workshop in the mid-19th century, today's porcelain factory is on the southern outskirts of town. One of its buildings has a demonstration workshop and a museum whose Meissen collection rivals that of Dresden's Porzellansammlung.

Various Bavarian rulers were fascinated with the ancient world and in the 19th century accumulated huge quantities of significant Egyptian treasures, part of which make up the Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst. The collection is housed in an impressive modern building in Munich's superb Kunstareal.

The Kulturforum's Staatsbibliothek is one of the largest libraries in Europe, and was one of the Berlin settings in Wim Wenders's 1987 film Wings of Desire.

In a city dotted with lakes, pools, and thermal baths, this is one of the most attractive public bathing spots, a neoclassical beauty built in 1914 and renovated in 2009. Even if you don’t plan on taking a dip, it’s worth a peek: the unremarkable, gray concrete exterior, which seems designed to ward off tourists, conceals two stunning swimming halls, their pristine pools lined with columns and decorated with elaborate mosaics and gargoyles spouting water. To make the most of it, get a day pass for the pools and multiple saunas. Monday is women-only day in the sauna and Sunday evenings are nude-only (FKK).

Inside the Altes Rathaus, this museum documents Leipzig's past. The entrance is behind the Rathaus. The museum's extended collection continues behind the Museum for Applied Arts.

This museum is housed in the Reichlin-von-Meldegg house, built in 1462, one of the earliest Renaissance dwellings in Germany. It displays exhibits tracing Bodensee history and houses Germany's largest collection of antique dollhouses.

Don't miss Freudenstadt's Protestant Stadtkirche, a Gothic-influenced Renaissance church just off the Market Square. Its lofty L-shape nave is a rare architectural feature built in 1608, constructed this way so that male and female worshippers would be separated and unable to see each other during services.

The 13th-century stained glass, wall paintings, medieval altars, and the stone pietà in the Gothic Stadtkirche are worth seeing, as are the Crucifixion sculptures (1515) by Rhenish master Hans Backoffen on Kirchplatz, behind the church.

From 1514 until his death in 1546, Martin Luther preached two sermons a week in the twin-tower Stadtkirche St. Marien. He and Katharina von Bora were married here (Luther broke with monasticism in 1525 and married the former nun). The altar triptych by Lucas Cranach the Elder includes a self-portrait, as well as portraits of Luther wearing the knight's disguise he adopted when hidden at the Wartburg; Luther preaching; Luther's wife and one of his sons; Melanchthon; and Lucas Cranach the Younger. Also notable is the 1457 bronze baptismal font by Herman Vischer the Elder. On the church's southeast corner is a discomforting juxtaposition of the two monuments dedicated to Wittenberg's Jews: a 1304 mocking caricature called the Jewish Pig, erected at the time of the expulsion of the town's Jews, and, on the cobblestone pavement, a contemporary memorial to the the city's Jews murdered by the Nazis.

Rottweil, 26 km (16 miles) east of Triberg, has the best of the Black Forest's Fasnet (Carnival) celebrations, which here are pagan, fierce, and steeped in tradition. In the days just before Ash Wednesday, in February or March, \"witches\" and \"devils\" roam the streets wearing ugly wooden masks and making fantastic gyrations as they crack whips and ring bells. If you can't make it to Rottweil during the Carnival season, you can still catch the spirit of Fasnet. There's an exhibit on it at the Stadtmuseum, and tours are organized to the shops where they carve the masks and make the costumes and bells—just be aware that the museum is only open Tuesday through Sunday, from 2 to 4. The name Rottweil may be more familiar as the name for a breed of dog. The area used to be a center of meat production, and locals bred the Rottweiler to herd the cattle.

Part of the Kulturhaus Oberwesel, a historic winery turned culture center, this museum offers a virtual tour of the town, as well as a multimedia \"journey through time\" showing the area from the Stone Age to the present day. It also houses a fine collection of old etchings and drawings of the Rhine Valley, including one by John Gardnor, an English clergyman and painter, who published a book of sketches upon his return to England and kicked off a wave of Romantic-era tourism in the late 18th century.

The city's small but fascinating municipal museum tells the ups and downs of Dresden's turbulent past—from the dark Middle Ages to the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. There are many peculiar exhibits on display, such as an American 250-kilogram bomb and a stove made from an Allied bomb casing. The building has the most interesting fire escape in the city.

The oldest half-timber house in Quedlinburg, built about 1310, is now a museum to half-timber construction techniques and architecture.

Germany's largest Romanesque living quarters and once the imperial women's apartments, this is now a history museum with relics from the Neolithic and Roman ages along with the history of the Palatinate, including medieval art, armor and weapons, and ceramics. Next to the Steinhaus are the remains of the northern facade of the palace, an arcade of superbly carved Romanesque pillars that flanked the imperial hall in its heyday. The imperial chapel, next to the Red Tower, holds a collection of religious art.

This pretty, 15th-century collegiate church was built atop the tomb of St. Goar, despite the fact that the tomb itself (an ancient pilgrimage site) was discovered to be empty during the church's construction. The 11th-century crypt is among the most beautiful to be found on the Rhine. Admire the exterior from the shade of the solitary oak.

The late-Gothic church has been well preserved; its original features include the stained-glass windows, the choir stalls, the ornate baptismal font, and the elaborate stone pulpit. The windows are famous for their colors and were much admired by Goethe. The dukes of Württemberg, from the 15th through the 17th century, are interred in the choir.

This simple, graceful church is one of the most important and best-preserved 12th-century Romanesque structures in Germany. Henry I and his wife Mathilde are buried in its crypt. The renowned Quedlinburg Treasure of 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-century gold and silver and bejeweled manuscripts is also kept here (what's left of it). Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler made the church into a shrine dedicated to the SS, insisting that it was only appropriate, since Henry I was the founder of the first German Reich.  Due to renovation work, visiting the church is restricted until 2025, and the church may, albeit rarely, be closed completely.

The huge Strandbad Wannsee attracts as many as 40,000 Berliners to its fine, sandy beach on summer weekends.

This charming little museum honors the Frankfurt physician who created the sardonic children's classic Struwwelpeter, or Slovenly Peter. Heinrich Hoffmann wrote the poems and drew the rather amateurish pictures in 1844, to warn children of the dire consequences of being naughty. The book has seen several English translations, including one by Mark Twain, which can be purchased at the museum. The kid-friendly museum has a puppet theater and game room, and is popular for birthday parties. After decades in a historic mansion in Westend, it reopened in a new location in Alstadt in 2019. English-language audio guide available.

Standing at the highest point of the city, this Catholic basilica with an attached Protestant chapel symbolizes the Peace of Augsburg, the treaty that ended the religious struggle between the two groups. On the site of a Roman cemetery where St. Afra was martyred in AD 304, the original structure was built in the late-Gothic style in 1467. St. Afra is buried in the crypt, near the tomb of St. Ulrich, a 10th-century bishop who helped stop a Hungarian army at the gates of Augsburg in the Battle of the Lech River. The remains of a third patron of the church, St. Simpert, are preserved in an elaborate side chapel. From the steps of the magnificent altar, look back along the high nave to the finely carved, wrought-iron-and-wood baroque railing that borders the entrance. As you leave, look into the separate but adjacent church of St. Ulrich, the baroque preaching hall that was added for the Protestant community in 1710, after the Reformation.

The smaller of the two Ludwig art institutions in town (the Ludwig Forum is the larger one) has a collection that concentrates paintings from the 12th to the early 20th century, including a sizable holding of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works by the likes of Anthony Van Dyck and Frans Hals. It's also home to one of Germany's largest sculpture collections.

Recently joining Sommer + Kohl's courtyard (in the empire owned by Scottish artist Douglas Gordon, whose studio is upstairs), Supportico Lopez is a curator's and art-lover's dream. No wonder: it started as a curatorial project in Naples, and reflects curators Gigiotto Del Vecchio and Stefania Palumbo’s vision.