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.

Visual arts

Art is vital to Germany and always has been. Its history as a land more divided than united delivered its artists the vital role of defining and asserting Germanness when there was no Germany. In no other great nation has hope alternated so starkly with despair. Germany is “not so much a nation as a process” explains the British art historian and critic Andrew Graham-Dixon. “That is why art has always been at its core.”

There can be no better place to examine humanity in its contrasts, contradictions and extremes. Fortunately there is a significant public commitment to art and a city’s collections are a matter of local pride.

German artists

Crediting work before the late Gothic period or Renaissance is difficult. Some of the work attributed to the 15th century sculptor and painter Bernt Notke has been destroyed but his surviving work, all over the Baltic area, puts him ahead of most artists of the period. Likewise little endures of the work of the mysterious Matthias Grünewald, all of it religious. Much more survives of the sculpture and carving of the Würzburg master Tilman Riemenschneider. Their contemporary, the Nuremberg printmaker and painter Albrecht Dürer, is the towering figure of the German Renaissance, mastering landscapes, animal studies, portraits and religious art. Yet in the German lands the Gothic remains influential and provides a tension, especially in the work of Grünewald and Dürer.

Lucas Cranach the elder brought a realistic quality to Renaissance painting and his association with the Saxon electors and Martin Luther gave him plenty of subjects. His son developed a very similar style. Hans Holbein the younger learned much from his father and namesake and became one of the sought-after portrait painters of his time, travelling throughout Europe on his commissions.

The Enlightenment and its Neoclassicism yielded no German painters of lasting world repute. The principal German figure was the archaeologist and art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who set about elevating regard for Hellenistic aesthetics, especially sculpture, and classifying ancient art. Johann Gottfried Schadow sculpted many of the most important works of the time, including the Quadriga of the Brandenburger Tor. His pupil, Christian Daniel Rauch, went on to shape statues of many of the greatest Prussian figures, notably Frederick the Great.

Germany, after the Sturm und Drang movement of the late 18th century, was powerful in influencing Romanticism. Caspar David Friedrich was clearly the leader among German painters of the period with his depictions of nature, most often with humans or human creations dwarfed by the landscape. Germany’s Realist reaction was then led by Adolph von Menzel.

When Impressionism arrived in Germany Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt were among the foremost practitioners. But near the turn of the 20th century the arrival of the Munich and then Berlin secessions – a Modernist revolt against Wilhelmine oppression in the arts – again put Liebermann in the forefront.

Expressionism began to flower in Dresden and Munich and in Berlin Käthe Kollwitz, the best known among German women artists, used her drawings, prints and sculptures to depict the suffering of workers and women under oppression and the consequences of war. Another German female artist, Paula Modersohn-Becker, was also part of this movement. Heinrich Zille was at this time depicting the industrial proletariat very differently with his comic-satirical take on a hard life.

New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) was a 1920s reaction to Expressionism through which George Grosz emerged. Where Zille depicted Berlin’s working folk with humour, Grosz caricatured Weimar period Berlin with critical savagery. This sense of horror and disgust, and left-wing sympathies, were drivers for Berlin’s Dadaist period, which Grosz and Otto Dix embraced. The Dada movement soon spread to Cologne.

Paul Klee’s first strong convictions came from his exposure to Munich Expressionism but he went on to produce elusive, abstracted works influenced by the Bauhaus movement, Cubism and Surrealism.

Of later German artists Joseph Beuys became one of the most influential, and probably the most controversial, for his performance and installation art, continuing the close connection between German 20th century art and politics. Many more could be mentioned here.

Art museums & galleries

The museums of Germany are essentials for art lovers and the main cities are replete with galleries. Art museums can be expected to open about 10.00, to be closed Mondays or Tuesdays, to be open to about 20.00 on Wednesdays or Thursdays and to be closed many public holidays.

Admission prices for leading metropolitan museums generally vary between €7 and €14 for adults. Exhibition rates can apply in some and special rates such as those offered one day a month are usually for locals. It is possible in some cities to view several museums at an umbrella price, or visit them using a city tourist card.

On Berlin’s Museumsinsel (‘museum island’) most periods are represented. The Altes Museum and the Pergamonmuseum (closed until 2026) house the classical glories of the state antiquities collection. The Neues Museum prehistory and Egyptian collections (including the bust of Nefertiti) cover the early period and the Bode-Museum has sculpture and Byzantine art – to be sure the produce of the archaeological industries of an acquisitive age. The Alte Nationalgalerie has the 19th century and Impressionist works. The Bauhaus-Archiv has been established in the Tiergarten to document the influential work of the former Dessau design school.

Among converted buildings, the Neogothic Friedrichswerdersche Kirche was turned into a museum of 19th century German sculpture and the old Hamburger Bahnhof has become a museum for contemporary works.

The departure of the Deutsche Guggenheim in 2013 was made good by the establishment of a new gallery. There is also the Berlinische Galerie for a variety of media. Many major Berlin art museums are open until 20.00 Thursdays. The three-day Berlin WelcomeCard covers entry to all Museumsinsel museums and discounts to others.

In Munich, where in the 19th century an elite of practitioners established a clear lead over the rest of Germany, the magnets are the Kunstareal trio of the Alte Pinakothek (for old masters and some of the finest early German works), the Neue Pinakothek (for late 18th century works and the movements of the 19thand early 20th centuries, but closed until 2027) and the Pinakothek der Moderne. Additionally there is the Sammlung Schack (19th century works) and Museum Brandhorst (contemporary, including Andy Warhol). Admission prices for these vary from €4 to €10 but any can be visited for only €1 on Sundays or art lovers who can manage all in a day can do so for €12 (special exhibitions included). The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung is most notable for its Dürer collection.

In Dresden the main museums are grouped under the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. The Zwinger complex includes the state porcelain collection and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, the Albertinum an assembly of Classical sculpture and the 19th and 20th century art of the Gemäldegalerie Neue Meister. The so-called Grünes Gewölbe collections are part of the electors’ palace. The SKD day ticket for all this and more costs €24. The Städtische Galerie Dresden alone holds more than 20,000 works and there are several other art museums besides.

In Leipzig the Museum der bildende Künste has tens of thousands of works but the most famous are its collection by Lucas Cranach the elder. Contemporary and applied arts in Leipzig have their own museums.

Düsseldorf’s Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen offers a very different picture. The collection is based around more than 100 Paul Klee works, housed at the K20 Grabbeplatz, K21 Ständehaus and Schmela Haus museums. More conventional in form is the Museum Kunstpalast with its European gallery, 20th and 21st century paintings, sculpture and a huge archive of drawings and prints, plus exhibitions. The Düsseldorf Welcome Card provides discounts on admission to each.

In Cologne the Museum Ludwig is home to Modernism with a focus on pop and Picasso. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum looks back to the Middle Ages but there is a large collection of Dutch and Flemish masters based around Rubens and Rembrandt as well as 19th century works. History is also the stuff of the Museum Schnütgen, displayed in a church, the exhibits being religious works (especially sculpture). Applied arts and the art of east Asia form further museums. Cologne’s Käthe Kollwitz Museum houses more than 700 of the artist’s works. The Köln Welcome Card includes discounts at art museums.

Hamburg’s Kunsthalle houses Dutch and Flemish masters, French works and German works including some of the nation’s greatest names plus a collection focused on historical paintings associated with the city. Contemporary art is in a separate gallery. For variety there are museums of arts and industry and erotic art. The Deichtorhallen has photography and more contemporary art. Hamburg Card delivers discounts on museum entry.

Frankfurt’s museums include the Städel collection, holding about 800 years of works from Europe’s finest artists, and the Schirn Kunsthalle, which hosts many thematic exhibitions from overseas. Other museums cover modern and applied art.

Stuttgart’s Kunstmuseum has a varied collection but prizes its collection of New Objectivity works by Otto Dix in a house once owned by the artist. The Staatsgalerie has German, Dutch and Italian works from the 14th century on and changing exhibitions.

Churches, castles & palaces

Museums and galleries are not the end of art. Much artistic talent and the riches that support it have been directed to the praise of God over more than a millennium and still reside in the cathedrals and churches, generally the least expensive venues for visitors. Sculpture, carving, painting and stained glass are liberally displayed and there is no more intense exhibition of art than the totality of concept in a Baroque or Rococo church.

The castles and palaces were the usual venues for displaying royal portraiture and examples of opulence in interior decoration and furniture. The facades and interiors of Potsdam, Dresden, Munich, Würzburg, Stuttgart, nearby Ludwigsburg, Mannheim and Bamberg all display the inspiration of Versailles as well as the sheer competitiveness of the German courts of the period.