The capital argues with its own century. The south just pours another beer.
Which Rhine boat passes the castles and which only does the skyline. What a memorial day at Sachsenhausen asks of you. Whether Neuschwanstein survives the coach ride from Munich. Reviews of every tour you can book in Germany.
A brewery in Cologne, a harbour hour in Hamburg, the castle in the Alps, the camp at Oranienburg.
The four bookings a first trip through Germany tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first eveningBrewery Tour with 3 Kölsch Beer TastingsKölsch arrives in 0.2-litre glasses and keeps arriving until you put the beer mat on top of one. The brewery walk is where somebody finally explains the rules.
02The harbour hour1.5-Hour Harbor and Speicherstadt Day CruiseNinety minutes through the warehouse canals of the Speicherstadt and out among the container cranes. The quickest way to understand what Hamburg is for.
03The castle dayNeuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day TripA full day out of Munich for two of Ludwig II’s palaces and the foothills between them. Long, and the reason most people come to Bavaria at all.
04The day north of BerlinSachsenhausen Concentration Camp Tour in EnglishA guided visit to the camp memorial at Oranienburg, an hour from the city. Give it the whole day, and expect it to take the evening as well.
Germany reads better from a deck than from a platform.
The Rhine gorge keeps a ruin on nearly every bend. The Elbe runs out of Dresden to a palace with a Chinese roof. The Spree carries you past the government quarter at the speed the architecture deserves. Three kinds of day afloat, and what it costs to board each one.
Berlin first, then whichever city the ICE reaches before lunch.
A capital still arguing with its own century, a beer city under the Alps, a working port, a cathedral on the Rhine, a baroque skyline rebuilt stone by stone, and the banking towers with the best boat on the Main. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Berlin: register for the dome, then walk the rest of it.
The whole Berlin list →
The Bundestag cupola runs on named slots booked in advance. The Wall is scattered across four districts and makes no sense without somebody joining it up. The collections sit on one island in the Spree. These three carry more travellers than anything else in Berlin.
- 1Third Reich and Cold War 2 Hour Walking Tourfrom $23
- 2Berlin Story Bunker Entry Ticketfrom $21
- 3Discover Berlin Walking Tourfrom $23
Inside the dome, not on the lawn
Registration closes days ahead in summer and the ramp inside the cupola is the whole point. The guided version adds the plenary chamber and the government buildings along the river bend.
Checkpoint Charlie, the Wall, the Stasi
What survives is fragments: a watchtower behind an office block, a double line of cobbles down the middle of a street, a painted stretch by the river. A guide is the difference between fragments and a story.
Museum Island and the Jewish Museum
Five collections on one island in the Spree, plus Libeskind’s zinc building in Kreuzberg where the architecture does as much work as the exhibits. Book entry rather than queue in the rain.
Germany does not hide its own century. Guides walk you into it.
Two hours on foot in Berlin covers the Third Reich and the Cold War in the same streets, because it happened in the same streets. Munich does the same around Königsplatz, where the party built its headquarters and left the foundations behind.
The memorial sites at Sachsenhausen and Dachau are visited separately, with a guide, and take most of a day. Concentration camp memorial visits →
Germany’s most popular days out.
The whole German catalogue →More travellers book these than anything else in Germany. What each one gets right is underneath it.
1
1-Hour City Tour by Boat with Guaranteed Seating
Spend one hour on the Spree with Stern und Kreisschiffahrt, passing the Reichstag, Government Quarter, Bellevue Palace, Victory Column, Hauptbahnhof, Berlin Cathedral, Museum Island, and Nikolaiviertel. Your seat is guaranteed, though not necessarily by a window. Food and drinks are sold on board, and audio commentary is available in 12 languages.
From · $25
Read our review →
2
Sex and Crime in St. Pauli Tour for Ages 18+
3
Semperoper Tickets and Guided Tour
from $18
4
Discover Berlin Half-Day Walking Tour
from $24
5
Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour with Live Commentary
from $22
6
Government District around the Reichstag Guided Tour
7
Reichstag, Plenary Chamber, Cupola & Government Tour
from $18
8
Jewish Museum Berlin Entrance Ticket
A Kölsch is 0.2 litres and it keeps arriving until you cover the glass.
Cologne pours Kölsch, Düsseldorf pours Alt, and neither city will hear a word about the other. Munich drinks in halls the size of railway stations. Hamburg eats fish for breakfast. The evening tours are where somebody finally explains the rules.
A mad king’s castle, a Prussian summer house and a Saxon opera stage.
Neuschwanstein takes a full day out of Munich and sells out most of the summer. Sanssouci is forty minutes from Berlin on a regional train. The Rhine keeps its castles low and half-ruined; Bavaria built its for the photograph, a century after castles stopped being useful.
Every castle and palace day →
Bavaria behaves like a country that agreed to join in.
Munich is beer halls, a royal residence and a standing wave that people surf in the middle of a city park. An hour south the lakes start and the Alps stand up behind them. The coaches for the castles leave early. Base yourself in the city; the rest is a day trip.
- 1Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle-Fairytale Day Tour from Munichfrom $95
- 2Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site Tour from Munich by Trainfrom $64
- 3Neuschwanstein Castle Tour from Munichfrom $95
What a German day out costs, from a walk to a hired car.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. City walks and river hours come in well under the price of dinner; the castle coaches and the private days are where the money goes.
Old-town walks, museum entry, an hour on the river and the night watchman doing his rounds.
The full-day standards: the castles out of Munich, the Rhine valley from Frankfurt, an evening of beer and food.
Private guides, chartered days and the Black Forest by car with somebody else driving.
Three things that happen in Germany and nowhere else.
Old towns and cathedrals exist all over Europe. A night watchman still walking his rounds with a halberd, a fairytale castle built by a king who drowned before it was finished, and a car factory with hardwood floors and glass walls do not.
The Night Watchman
Until street lighting arrived, the watchman walked the lanes after dark calling the hour and checking for fire. Dresden, Rothenburg, Bremen, Leipzig and a dozen smaller towns put him back on the cobbles in costume, and the tour is genuinely the town’s own history rather than a costume drama. Most run after sunset, which in December means half past four.
- 1The Original Night Watchman Tour in Lantern Light★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,653 reviews
- 2Night Watchman’s Tour of St. Pauli in German★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 4,818 reviews
- 31.5-Hour Public Tour with Night Watchman Bremme★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,116 reviews
Neuschwanstein and Linderhof
Ludwig II spent seventeen years and the family fortune building castles he barely lived in, then died in a lake in circumstances nobody has satisfactorily explained. Neuschwanstein was never finished; Linderhof, small and gilded, was the only one he completed. Both are timed entry, both are full, and the coach from Munich takes a whole day to do the pair.
- 1Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 12,494 reviews
- 2Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle-Fairytale Day Tour from Munich★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 7,275 reviews
- 3Neuschwanstein Castle Tour from Munich★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,117 reviews
The factory floor and the museums
Stuttgart keeps the Mercedes collection in a double-helix building you walk down rather than up. Leipzig lets visitors onto the BMW line while it is running. Dresden built a car plant with glass walls and hardwood floors in the middle of the city, because somebody decided manufacturing should be watchable. All three are open to anyone who books.
- 1Mercedes-Benz Museum Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,400 reviews
- 2Sightseeing Tour in Classic Volkswagen T1 Samba Bus★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 993 reviews
- 3Exclusive BMW & MINI Behind-the-Scenes Factory Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 289 reviews
Four German bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before from a table with a beer on it. These four run on registered slots, coach seats and rehearsal schedules that take no interest in your train times.
- 01Reichstag, Dome and Government District Guided TourEntry to the dome is registered in advance under your own name. In summer the slots are gone weeks out and there is no door to turn up at.
- 02Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day TripCastle entry is timed, and the coach seats out of Munich fill before the tickets do. Arriving at Hohenschwangau without a slot means seeing it from the bridge.
- 03Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Tour in EnglishThe guided visits leave the city on one departure and take most of the day. Miss it and there is no afternoon alternative.
- 04Semperoper Tickets and Guided TourIt is a working opera house, so tours only run in the gaps between rehearsals and the day’s times go up shortly before it opens.
From late November every city centre rearranges itself around a market.
The Christmas markets open in the last days of November and most are gone by Christmas Eve, which is a much shorter season than visitors expect. Around them the winter is short daylight and rain, and that is what the museums, the brewery cellars and the covered markets are for.
- 1DDR Museum Ticketsfrom $15
- 2Natural History Museum Entrance Ticketfrom $12
- 3Neues Museum Entry Ticketfrom $16
By city — north, south and the Rhine
By kind of day — river, wall, castle or beer hall
Berlin, Dresden, Munich and the Rhine: the run almost everybody does first.
Potsdam
RüdesheimNew German reviews, newest first.
The rest of the new ones →
Berchtesgaden: Via Ferrata Beginner Tour of Schützensteig
Read our review →
Beer Bike & Party Bike: Unforgettable Berlin City Tour incl. pickup
Read our review →
Beelitz-Heilstätten: Baum&Zeit Tree Top Walk Entry Ticket
Read our review →
Bayreuth: German City Walking Tour (Tourist Info)
Read our review →
Bastei Bridge & Gorge Boat Ride – Day Trip from Dresden
Read our review →
