Obviously, this selection, prepared for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oracne, is highly subjective. (And based in pre-pandemic times.) Not to mention that as in every country, where to go partly depends on how mobile you are. I enjoy walking and exploring new towns and landscapes very much, but it's not possible for everyone. In 2019, an older couple I'd met in New Zealand visited Europe; he had a shattered knee and she had a bad hip. They went by ship, from Budapest to Amsterdam, which you can do when going from the Danube to the Main to the Rhine, and enjoyed it very much, with the travel organization they'd booked their trip on providing excursions via bus on the various towns their ship anchored at. (Including my hometown.)
Speaking of which: naturally, Bamberg heads my list of places to visit in Germany. This isn't just local bias speaking. Bamberg, which is over a 1000 years old, has the good luck of having its city centre almost intact, which means it looks great and you can go on foot almost everywhere. (In fact, you should go on foot, because good luck finding a parking spot in the city centre.) You don't have to take my word for it; check out the pictorial posts I did in the past.
Bamberg in the winter
Bamberg in the summer
Bamberg from above
And lastly, a post not by my but bykathyh on Bamberg, here.
Fortunately for travellers, Bamberg is a station on the direct train connection between Munich and Berlin, which means if you visit either of these cities, which you should, you can make a stop in Bamberg easily. (Nuremberg is also part of the same railway connection, and certainly worth a stop both if you're interested in older history or 20th century history (obviously), but as 95% of the city was bombed into oblivion in WWII, anything old looking you see other than the house of Albrecht Dürer is almost certainly reconstructed.
Berlin: hardly needs advertisement, between being the capital, and in the English speaking world known as a mixture between Cabaret and Bridge of Spies, pop culture wise. I would add that you should take one of the Spree boat trips offered there so you can see a lot of the city, east and west, from immensely picturesque perspectives. Also once they reopen the Pergamon Museum completely, go there. Previous photo posts of mine on Berlin are here and here, and for good measure, I'll throw in a 13 minutes tv special on David Bowie in Berlin, David Bowie: Hero of Berlin. Depending on how much time you have, you might also want to check out Potsdam, where they have not only the Babelsberg Studios (very much back in demand now; they shot several of the later MCU movies partially there, which is why we Germans got to watch them a week or so before the Americans did) but also Sanssouci.
Now if you are from a small-to-middle sized Franconian town, like me, a great many of your classmates after school either go to Berlin or to Munich in order to study. I went to Munich. Which is older than Berlin, like Berlin has a past both famous and infamous, and has the geographical advantage of being near the Alps, only three hours away from Italy on the road. (Again, in pre pandemic times.) It's not just in the most southern of the big German cities in terms of location but also in spirit: Monaco di Bavaria. Have two photo posts on Munich in autumn here and here, and one on Munich in winter. If its raining, Munich offers some great museums (both in terms of painting - the Alte Pinakothek - and in terms of science - I haven't met the kid yet which dislikes the Deutsches Museum with its electric demonstrations and original Konrad Zuse coomputer. If you're into cars, it also has BMW. Depending on your schedule, you might want to check out the surrounding area, like Tegernsee. (Do not go to Neuschwanstein unless you really have a lot of time. Firstly, it's in the middle of the countryside, far from the nearest Autobahn, secondly, it's overcrowded, and thirdly, its charm lies in being seen from outside, where from the right spot it does look fairy tale like. Inside, you have a never finished castle with incredibly camp 19th century interior design. And hordes of queueing people. If you absolutely want to visit one of the palaces Ludwig II. built for himself, go to Herrenchiemsee instead. That's in the middle of a league and looks like Versailles which is why it's currently doubling for Versailles in most movies you've seen made in the last decade.
Butselenak, I can hear you say, Berlin and Munich are on everyone's rec list, don't you have any less obvious destinations other than your hometown? Of course I do, and again they come with photo posts of their own.
Schwäbisch Hall: small, old, gorgeous
Hannover: not just of interest to Brits who want to know where their German Kings kept disappearing to for the holidays.
Speyer: has not just a wonderful cathedral but one of the best preserved Mikwas in Germany.
Marburg: where the Brothers Grimm studied.
Trier: oldest still existing city of Germany (courtesy of the Romans, who left a lot of great ruins there), hometown of Karl Marx.
Erfurt, in GDR times arguably the most beautiful town of East Germany (it's still beautiful, but now several other East German towns have gone through rebuildings and renovations)
Then again, maybe you're after landscapes more than towns and cities. In which case: there's a train connection that for a long time runs parallel to the Rhine, so from Frankfurt to Düsseldorf via Bonn and Cologne you can see the river, the picturesque mountains and castles, the vineyards. (Or you can do whatkathyh and my New Zealand pals did and take the boat for the same purpose.) If you're feeling up to a natural park, well, there's the Bayrischer Wald (offers lynx and bears along with mountains and forests). If you feel more like a mixture of landscapes and picturesque little towns, see Tegernsee above, but also, on a larger scale, the Bodensee, which is shared between Germany, Switzerland and Austria. If you want the ocean and the beach: I have a deep childhood fondness for the island Sylt in the Northern sea. (You can get there either via ferry or by train.) While en route to Sylt, there is of course the chance to check out the Belle of the North, i.e. Hamburg, see also here. Be sure to take warm clothing with you, because I haven't been there yet in all the years of my life when it wasn't either windy, rainy, or both. But it has a cool, stunning elegance in some parts and a raw vitality in others.
Now, like I said: this is by no means a complete list, and it's entirely subjective. But I swear that visiting any of these places is something no visitor will regret.
The other days
oracne, is highly subjective. (And based in pre-pandemic times.) Not to mention that as in every country, where to go partly depends on how mobile you are. I enjoy walking and exploring new towns and landscapes very much, but it's not possible for everyone. In 2019, an older couple I'd met in New Zealand visited Europe; he had a shattered knee and she had a bad hip. They went by ship, from Budapest to Amsterdam, which you can do when going from the Danube to the Main to the Rhine, and enjoyed it very much, with the travel organization they'd booked their trip on providing excursions via bus on the various towns their ship anchored at. (Including my hometown.) Speaking of which: naturally, Bamberg heads my list of places to visit in Germany. This isn't just local bias speaking. Bamberg, which is over a 1000 years old, has the good luck of having its city centre almost intact, which means it looks great and you can go on foot almost everywhere. (In fact, you should go on foot, because good luck finding a parking spot in the city centre.) You don't have to take my word for it; check out the pictorial posts I did in the past.
Bamberg in the winter
Bamberg in the summer
Bamberg from above
And lastly, a post not by my but by
kathyh on Bamberg, here. Fortunately for travellers, Bamberg is a station on the direct train connection between Munich and Berlin, which means if you visit either of these cities, which you should, you can make a stop in Bamberg easily. (Nuremberg is also part of the same railway connection, and certainly worth a stop both if you're interested in older history or 20th century history (obviously), but as 95% of the city was bombed into oblivion in WWII, anything old looking you see other than the house of Albrecht Dürer is almost certainly reconstructed.
Berlin: hardly needs advertisement, between being the capital, and in the English speaking world known as a mixture between Cabaret and Bridge of Spies, pop culture wise. I would add that you should take one of the Spree boat trips offered there so you can see a lot of the city, east and west, from immensely picturesque perspectives. Also once they reopen the Pergamon Museum completely, go there. Previous photo posts of mine on Berlin are here and here, and for good measure, I'll throw in a 13 minutes tv special on David Bowie in Berlin, David Bowie: Hero of Berlin. Depending on how much time you have, you might also want to check out Potsdam, where they have not only the Babelsberg Studios (very much back in demand now; they shot several of the later MCU movies partially there, which is why we Germans got to watch them a week or so before the Americans did) but also Sanssouci.
Now if you are from a small-to-middle sized Franconian town, like me, a great many of your classmates after school either go to Berlin or to Munich in order to study. I went to Munich. Which is older than Berlin, like Berlin has a past both famous and infamous, and has the geographical advantage of being near the Alps, only three hours away from Italy on the road. (Again, in pre pandemic times.) It's not just in the most southern of the big German cities in terms of location but also in spirit: Monaco di Bavaria. Have two photo posts on Munich in autumn here and here, and one on Munich in winter. If its raining, Munich offers some great museums (both in terms of painting - the Alte Pinakothek - and in terms of science - I haven't met the kid yet which dislikes the Deutsches Museum with its electric demonstrations and original Konrad Zuse coomputer. If you're into cars, it also has BMW. Depending on your schedule, you might want to check out the surrounding area, like Tegernsee. (Do not go to Neuschwanstein unless you really have a lot of time. Firstly, it's in the middle of the countryside, far from the nearest Autobahn, secondly, it's overcrowded, and thirdly, its charm lies in being seen from outside, where from the right spot it does look fairy tale like. Inside, you have a never finished castle with incredibly camp 19th century interior design. And hordes of queueing people. If you absolutely want to visit one of the palaces Ludwig II. built for himself, go to Herrenchiemsee instead. That's in the middle of a league and looks like Versailles which is why it's currently doubling for Versailles in most movies you've seen made in the last decade.
But
selenak, I can hear you say, Berlin and Munich are on everyone's rec list, don't you have any less obvious destinations other than your hometown? Of course I do, and again they come with photo posts of their own.Schwäbisch Hall: small, old, gorgeous
Hannover: not just of interest to Brits who want to know where their German Kings kept disappearing to for the holidays.
Speyer: has not just a wonderful cathedral but one of the best preserved Mikwas in Germany.
Marburg: where the Brothers Grimm studied.
Trier: oldest still existing city of Germany (courtesy of the Romans, who left a lot of great ruins there), hometown of Karl Marx.
Erfurt, in GDR times arguably the most beautiful town of East Germany (it's still beautiful, but now several other East German towns have gone through rebuildings and renovations)
Then again, maybe you're after landscapes more than towns and cities. In which case: there's a train connection that for a long time runs parallel to the Rhine, so from Frankfurt to Düsseldorf via Bonn and Cologne you can see the river, the picturesque mountains and castles, the vineyards. (Or you can do what
kathyh and my New Zealand pals did and take the boat for the same purpose.) If you're feeling up to a natural park, well, there's the Bayrischer Wald (offers lynx and bears along with mountains and forests). If you feel more like a mixture of landscapes and picturesque little towns, see Tegernsee above, but also, on a larger scale, the Bodensee, which is shared between Germany, Switzerland and Austria. If you want the ocean and the beach: I have a deep childhood fondness for the island Sylt in the Northern sea. (You can get there either via ferry or by train.) While en route to Sylt, there is of course the chance to check out the Belle of the North, i.e. Hamburg, see also here. Be sure to take warm clothing with you, because I haven't been there yet in all the years of my life when it wasn't either windy, rainy, or both. But it has a cool, stunning elegance in some parts and a raw vitality in others. Now, like I said: this is by no means a complete list, and it's entirely subjective. But I swear that visiting any of these places is something no visitor will regret.
The other days
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