The most beautiful cities in Germany

Germany’s most beautiful cities and towns stand among the best places to visit in the European Union. They span almost the full range of European variety.

• There are cities with Roman origins and remains such as Trier, Cologne, Regensburg and Mainz.
• Medieval cities such as Nuremberg, Erfurt, Bamberg and Worms and the half-timbered Harz region towns of Goslar, Quedlinburg and Wernigerode.
• Renaissance showpiece cities such as Lübeck, Augsburg or Bremen.
• Cities with Baroque survivals, including Dresden, Heidelberg or Passau.
• Plenty of German cities have beautiful palaces on their streets or nearby, like Potsdam, Munich, Stuttgart, Würzburg and Weimar.
• The great cathedrals such as Cologne, Regensburg, Bamberg, Mainz, Erfurt, Worms, with countless other churches, sometimes in Romanesque but more commonly in the Gothic style. The münster of Ulm has the tallest spire of them all.
• Museums of culture and art among world’s best, including Deutsches Museum, Deutsches Nationalmuseum, Alte Pinakothek and the Pergamonmuseum.

All these places can be reached by train and bus (Quedlinburg is on a branch line). All offer a range of hotels, hostels, guest houses and other types of accommodation. All are very walkable and, like most German towns and cities, are really best seen on foot. But trams and buses help get people to and from hotels or attractions and for the bigger centres, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Nuremberg, there are fast regular options in the form of S-bahn and U-bahn trains and light-rail transport.

Food & drink

Eating and drinking are matters Germans take seriously and more than a million are employed in the catering sector. Both are relatively inexpensive in Germany, in spite of value-added taxes, but in the past few years the build-up of inflationary pressures have affected the industry.

Restaurants

The usual signs to look for are 'Restaurant', 'Gaststätte' and 'Gasthof' (sometimes 'Bistro'), although many cafes will offer meals, especially light or late breakfasts.  Many restaurants will be open for lunch, but most cafes will be closed for dinner.

A main course in a modest restaurant, with a glass of wine or beer, usually costs €18-25 and meals like this are common in any city. Children by law may drink beer or wine from age 14 under parental supervision (spirits from age 18).

German standard fare is still prevalent but the trend is away from traditionally heavy, rich food. Vegetarians have an easier time than once would have been the case, with vegetarian food bars and occasional restaurants springing up and vegetarian dishes appearing on most restaurant menus. Vegans will find travel more challenging but big cities will offer options and even suitable fast foods are available.

Tipping will generally be a matter of rounding up the bill and tips can be paid to the service staff. Somewhere between 5% and 10% is a reasonable guide. Cash is preferred by most German small businesses, but leading credit cards are often acceptable. Contactless payment is more common since the arrival of COVID-19.

Self-service

For filling meals with variety in the cities, seek out the cafeterias in main shopping malls and department stores. A fairly appetising cafeteria lunch on the upper floor of a shopping centre comes very affordably (this is also the case in many major railway stations) and is especially welcome for families managing costs. Motorists will find cafeterias or restaurants at autobahn petrol stations and large museums will often have a canteen or cafe where light meals cost very little.

At university campuses the cafeteria is the Mensa, still state-subsidised and very inexpensive but rather better than a canteen. Here salad and other vegetarian offerings are standard.  In many cases anyone can eat there but students will need their ID to get the full savings. The system works well in Berlin, where menus are posted online in English, and can easily be used by travellers. Users will have to buy the local stored-value card to pay in most Mensas – this can be bought cheaply on site and topped up from machines. Mensas will not be open weekends or (in most cases) for dinner.

Cafes & bakeries

Breakfast cafes are part of urban culture and the all-day breakfast is a Berlin tradition. Coffee and a snack is a much-loved custom that travellers happily endorse and for many will become a light lunch.

The bakery (Bäckerei, sometimes Backhaus) is a cheap and popular snack or lunch stop. Bakeries offer an authentically German experience on a budget, such as delicatessen meats or schnitzels in a roll, as well as some salads.

For travellers on the go, bakery outlets are often positioned for bustling traffic at city rail stations or high traffic areas, offer a range of rolls and sandwiches, pastries and salads with hot and cold beverages. Often these are open until late, and usually seven days. There are several similar branded outlets, but the chief ones are:

• Kamps - more than 400 branches include 50 railway station outlets selling loaves, rolls, prepared sandwiches and wraps, sweet pastries and croissants.
• Le Crobag - baguettes, croissants and sweet pastries are offered at more than 100 outlets, most in northern and central Germany, especially Berlin and Hamburg.
• Wiener Feinbäcker Heberer - more than 200 outlets offer baked goods through Berlin and central Germany as far south as Stuttgart.
• Ditsch - based around prezel varieties and speciality baked rolls and pizzas, this concern has about 200 outlets spread through Germany.
• BackWerk – has about 350 outlets, one of the widest spreads of through Germany, with a concentration on the Rhine-Ruhr area, prepared sandwiches, other convenience foods and drinks, loaves and rolls, emphasis on self-service.
• Yorma's - more than 60 outlets, mostly in the south, but several in Nordrhein-Westfalen and a few in Berlin and Hamburg, offering prepared baguettes, rolls and sandwiches, also drinks and salad and fruit snacks.

Fast foods

Aside from hamburger chains, the bakeries, the classic German street food of sausage (Wurst) and Turkish food (generally at kebab bars) are among the least expensive options, even if many of the latter enjoy serving their meat with chips (fries). 

Also on a budget are more than 300 Nordsee seafood restaurants, where fast or freshly prepared sit-down meals, soups and salads can be had for about €10. A store list and a survey of dishes are online.

Self-catering

The German grocery-supermarket chains Aldi, Penny, Lidl and Netto Marken-Discount are inexpensive but accessible sources of budget food and sundry items for youth hostel travellers or families using apartment accommodation. All are widely represented in big cities (but closed Sundays). They also tend to be much cheaper than specialist liquor stores or cellars for wines, beers and some spirits.

The trend to brand an organic food store (Biomarkt) has gathered pace and such stores, generally small, are increasingly common in the bigger cities. Weekly organic markets are now established in parts of Berlin. The usual descriptive word for organic foods in German (biologisch) can also be seen in food stores.

Drinking water

Germans love bottled water and are prepared to pay a price for it but tap water is of good quality and not normally chlorinated – though some hotels might add it. No German water supplies have been fluoridated since reunification. But water should not be expected free in restaurants, and if water is requested bottled water is likely to be served – at a price. Travellers who want bottled water – and there are reputedly hundreds of brands – will find prices lower at a budget supermarket.

Cuisine

Food is regional and in Germany this is particularly so. Some of what are now identified as German dishes are derived from other parts of central Europe and there is often a broad distinction drawn between south and north that is probably overstated. Nonetheless seafood is inevitably northern and a wide range of Bavarian and Swabian specialities are clear in their origins.

German menus: The accent might seem to be on the rich and the sweet but the subtleties are important. One generalisation is possible: meat, usually pork, beef or poultry, tends to be pot-roasted or marinated or made into countless varieties of sausage. Breads and rolls of hundreds of types, colours and textures are a breakfast staple to be expected in most hotels and pensions.

Contributions from minorities – especially the Turkish – have helped put a more international face on a German food scene that now more readily shares diverse tastes. But some characteristics can be picked out for travellers to experience.

For an authentically regional German experience, observe the tradition of the Ratskeller restaurants in or under the town hall (Rathaus) building in most cities and towns. These will not often be cheap but some of the local fare will be mid-priced.

A bewildering range of types of mushroom (often Champignon or Pilz, but also rejoicing in names of varieties such as Pfifferlingen) is likely to be on menus in modest or mid-range restaurants. Likewise the love for asparagus (much of it white) leads to the common sight of a Spargelmenü with a range of dishes designed around it. Potatoes (Kartoffeln) are still the usual partners on the meat plate.

Konditoreien are cafes serving rich cakes, pastries and confections, firmly part of the culture. Icecream – often stacked into large glasses (Eisbecher) and served with varieties of fresh berries ­– is one of the delights of German summer travel.

Typical tastes

A short list of dishes travellers can look for at traditional restaurants follows. Vegetarians and vegans will mostly be disappointed.

Klöße, Knödel: both referring to types of potato dumplings, Klöße being the more common term in the north. Knödel is the term in the south (sometimes the word will be Nudeln).

Rotkohl: red cabbage served with meat dishes.

Sauerkraut:  pickled white cabbage prepared in a variety of regional styles.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte:  the famous Black Forest cake, a chocolate sponge with cream and cherries.

Schweinshaxen: Bavarian pork knuckles (trotters).

Spätzle: soft pasta egg noodles generally associated with Swabia.

Strudel: layered pastry most often associated with apple filling and originally from eastern Europe.

Wiener Schnitzel: these breaded veal cutlets are obviously from an Austrian home but there is little separating what is now Bavarian from Austrian food. Schnitzel varieties have proliferated.

Wurst: sausage, whether served with a meal or as street food with mustard, has many regional forms that are worth sampling, notably Weißwurst and Bratwurst (both have several variations). 

Local tastes

Dishes, delicacies and drinks associated with particular cities are many but several worth looking for follow.

Bamberg: Bamberger Rauchbier is a term covering a group of reddish smoked strong lager varieties using kiln-dried malted barley and produced in pub breweries. The most reputed is Schlenkerla but most of the local breweries have varieties to sample.

Berlin: the Berliner Weiße sour light beer is traditionally flavoured with a berry syrup. While in the capital, try what the rest of Germany calls the Berliner, a type of sugared jam doughnut Berlin residents themselves call Pfannkuchen (and very different to the Pfannkuchen seen elsewhere).

Dresden: Dresdner Stollen or Christstollen combines bread and bun, coming as a long loaf spiced with dried fruit (the tastiest with marzipan) and strewn with icing sugar. Known traditionally as Striezel, it belongs to the bakers of Dresden and is a favourite at the Christmas festival or Striezelmarkt.

Lübeck: Lübecker marzipan, the spiced and sweetened almond and honey confection, first came to the city in late medieval times and became known for its high almond content. Tradition, perhaps unreliably, links the name with St Mark (Marci pane or Mark’s bread).

Nuremberg: Nürnberger Rostbratwurst, the oldest (14th century) recorded of the sausage varieties most identified with Franconia, today is presented as a short chopped-pork sausage, seasoned with marjoram and best enjoyed grilled over a flame. A trio served in a roll (locally Weckla) with mustard is the popular city street food, otherwise served on a plate with sauerkraut or potato salad around Hauptmarkt or in Rathausplatz.

Regensburg: the Regensburger, known locally as Knacker, is a boiled variety of white pork Wurst served with a salad of red onion, mustard, oil and vinegar.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Dinkelsbühl: Schneeballen, a sweet ball of rolled short-crust pastry strips, is larger than a tennis ball and typically brushed with sugar but sometimes glazed and flavoured with chocolate or nuts. It is the No 1 item in the local Konditoreien and popular in tourist cafes. Plum Schnapps or rum are additives for extra flavour.

Worms: Liebfraumilch or Liebfrauenmilch is a white, slightly sweet and low-cost wine first produced from the vines of the Liebfrauenstift but now through exports associated with much of the Rheinhessen wine region. 

Vegetarian & vegan food

There are well over 300 vegan restaurants in Germany, according to Statista. However, it is now rare to find German restaurants without some sort of vegetarian and vegan offering.

Berlin has a prominent vegan restaurant scene, but Hamburg, Munich and Cologne are also regarded as having strong vegan food cultures. This extends beyond the restaurant field to vegan-friendly bakeries, ice-cream parlours, markets and food stores. The websites Veggies Abroad and Veggie Visa offer vegan guides to big German cities.

In early 2021, accommodation rental database Nestpick rated Berlin and Munich in the top three cities in the world for vegetarians out of the 200 in its survey.

Dean & David, a chain with more than 130 German fresh-food and juice bars, caters for vegan and vegetarian diets and targets environmentally friendly practices.

Alcohol with food

No country is more closely associated with beer. There are more than 1200 German breweries and many of the brands are now internationally known. The many varieties and brands of Pilsener – actually from Bohemian origins – lead the choices in lagers.

Among the wines, of which the 13 recognised German regions produce more than a billion bottles a year, the Riesling (white) varieties are probably the leaders and the local pinot noir (Spätburgunder) variants are the chief reds.

The word for a shot of sharp white liquor, Schnapps (also Korn or the stronger Doppelkorn), is applied to drinks distilled from fruit and grain or potatoes and taken neat with meals.