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.

World heritage sites

Germany has 52* UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Palaces & castles

Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust in Brühl
Palaces and parks of Potsdam and Berlin
The Wartburg in Eisenach
Würzburg Residenz and Hofgarten

Gardens & landscapes

"Garden Kingdom" of Dessau-Wörlitz
Ancient beech forests of Rügen
Erzgebirge
Messel Pit fossil site
Mittelrhein valley, between Koblenz and Rüdesheim
Muskauer Park
Waddensee
Bergpark Wilmelmshöhe, near Kassel

Cultural & spiritual heritage

Archeological border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke
Musuemsinsel, Berlin
Caves and ice age art, Swabian Jura
Classical Weimar
Luther memorials in Eisleben and Wittenberg
Markgräfliches Opernhaus, Bayreuth
Prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps
Trier's Roman monuments, Dom and Liebfrauen-Basilika
Bremen's Altes Rathaus and Roland statue
Jewish and medieval heritage of Erfurt

Churches & abbeys

Aachen's Dom
Cologne's Dom
Corvey Carolingian westwork and civitas
Hildesheim's Mariendom and Michaeliskirche
Lorsch Abbey site
Maulbronn monastery complex
Monastic island of Reichenau
Naumburg's Dom
Speyer's Dom
Wieskirche pilgrimage church

Industrial heritage

Augsburg's unique water management system
Historic town of Goslar, mines of Rammelsberg, and Upper Harz water management system
Völklingen ironworks
Zollverein coal mine industrial complex in Essen

Architecture & design

Bauhaus sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau
Berlin Modernist housing estates
Fagus factory, Alfeld
Le Corbusier's work – the houses in the Weissenhof housing estate
Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt

Historical town centres

Bamberg Altstadt
Hamburg Speicherstadt and Kontorhaus district with Chilehaus
Hanseatic city of Lübeck
Historic centres of Stralsund and Wismar
Quedlinburg Dom, Altstadt and castle
Regensburg Altstadt and Stadtamhof
Speyer, Worms & Mainz Jewish centres
Spa towns Baden Baden, Bad Kissingen, Bad Ems

Fortifications

Hedeby & Danevirke
Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes (shared with other frontiers of the Roman empire)
Lower Germanic Limes

* The Dresden Altstadt and nearby Elbe valley were removed from the UNESCO list in 2009 due to concerns about the construction of the 600m Elbe bridge Waldschlösschenbrücke.