Germany, city by city, reviewed before you book.
Which Neuschwanstein day trip actually gets you inside the castle. Whether the Reichstag dome needs booking (it does). What a harbour cruise in Hamburg really costs. Read the reviews, then book.
Berlin, Munich, Hamburg — and the days between them.
Three cities take most of the bookings in Germany. The castles, the river cruises and the Saxon detours take the rest. Start with whichever one your flight lands in.
Berlin: the Wall, the Reichstag, and the queue you can skip.
All Berlin tours →
The city keeps its twentieth century above ground and charges nothing to look at it. What a guide adds is the order of it — which slab of Wall is original, which ministry building is which, and why the government quarter sits on both banks.
Three hours from Brandenburg Gate east
Gate, memorial field, the car park over the bunker, Checkpoint Charlie. Nothing here is far apart; the walk is the shortest way to make the map make sense.
An hour on the Spree past Museum Island
The river runs behind the Reichstag, under seven bridges and along Museum Island. Cheapest way to sit down for an hour and still be sightseeing.
The Nazi and Cold War city, walked plainly
Wilhelmstrasse, Topography of Terror, the death strip. Guides who deal in dates and documents rather than atmosphere; most of the sites themselves are free to enter.
The tours that fill up from Hamburg to the Zugspitze.
Every review →Ranked by how many travellers have actually taken them and said so afterwards. The order is theirs, not ours.
1
Reichstag, Dome and Government District Guided Tour
Guided visit to Berlin’s Reichstag, Plenarsaal and dome with rooftop views, political context, and a free dome registration for about 2 hours.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Sex and Crime in St. Pauli Tour for Ages 18 +
from $29
3
1-Hour City Tour by Boat with Guaranteed Seating
from $25
4
TV Tower Standard Entrance Ticket
from $33
5
Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip
from $94
6
1.5-Hour Harbor and Speicherstadt Day Cruise
from $40
7
Semperoper Tickets and Guided Tour
from $18
8
Boat Tour Along the River Spree
from $34
Munich is where the beer hall and the castle road meet.
The city is a two-day stop that people stretch to four, because the Alps start an hour south and Ludwig II left three palaces in them. Book the castle day early; book the beer evening whenever.
The German twentieth century, visited without ceremony.
Entry to the memorial sites at Sachsenhausen and Dachau is free, and both are reachable by public transport. What a guided visit buys is the journey out, the context on the way and someone who knows the ground. These pages are ordered and priced like every other list on the site; nothing else about them is.
The Rhine, the Moselle and the Elbe do the sightseeing for you.
Germany reads better from a deck. Cologne and Koblenz put castles on both banks, the Moselle turns them into vineyards, and Hamburg runs the whole harbour past you in ninety minutes for the price of a lunch.
From a walking tour to a private day on the castle road.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it costs. German sightseeing starts cheaper than most people expect — the cathedral cities give a lot away free.
Walking tours, entry tickets, an hour on the Spree or the Elbe. Most German cities can be done properly at this price.
The standard half-day: guided old towns, harbour cruises, beer-hall evenings, museum tours with the queue skipped.
Full days out of Munich and Berlin, the castle circuits, private guides and the trips that put a driver at the door.
Three days you can only have in Germany.
Half of Europe has an old town and a river boat. The mad king’s castles, the Elbe sandstone and the lantern-lit night watch belong to this country alone.
The Castle Day
Neuschwanstein was never finished and never lived in properly: the king had seventeen nights in it before he died in a lake. Inside you get a timed thirty-minute walk-through, and that ticket is the whole planning problem — it is sold through the official ticket centre, dated and timed, and the coach day trips from Munich exist mainly because they hold slots you cannot get at the gate.
- 1Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 14,646 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 Bastei Bridge
An hour upriver from Dresden the Elbe cuts through soft sandstone and leaves free-standing towers of rock. A stone bridge from 1851 threads between them, two hundred metres above the water. It is a national park, the walking is easy, and the day trips usually pair it with a Czech border village and a paddle steamer home.
- 1Prague: All-inclusive trip to Bohemian and Saxon Switzerland★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,421 reviews
- 2Saxon Switzerland National Park Full-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 931 reviews
- 3From Prague: Bohemian & Saxon Switzerland Iconic Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 883 reviews
The Night Watchman
Small German towns kept a watchman who walked the walls with a lantern and a halberd, calling the hours and checking for fire. Dresden, Rothenburg, Nuremberg and a dozen others have put him back on the street after dark. It is theatre, but the route is the real medieval circuit and the history is straight.
- 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
- 3The Original Night Watchman Bremme Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,815 reviews
The Reichstag dome and the castle tickets go weeks before you fly.
Most of Germany can be booked the night before from your hotel. These cannot: they run on registration lists, timed ticket centres and a calendar that has nothing to do with your flight.
- 01Reichstag, Dome and Government District Guided TourThe dome is free but entry is by advance registration only, and the slots are gone days ahead. A booked tour carries the paperwork for you.
- 02Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day TripCastle entry is timed and sold through the official ticket centre. Turning up at Hohenschwangau in summer without a slot usually means looking at it from outside.
- 03Beer and Food Tour with Dinner & Oktoberfest MuseumTent tables are reserved months ahead and the big tents shut their doors when full. Mid-September to the first Sunday in October, once a year.
- 04Christmas Markets Food Tour in MunichThe markets open in the last week of November and are dismantled around Christmas Eve. Four weeks, then nothing for eleven months.
- 05Semperoper Tickets and Guided TourDresden’s opera house runs its guided tours around rehearsals, so the daily slots are decided late and sell out early.
German winter is long. Munich’s cellars and Dresden’s galleries know it.
From November the light goes at four and the rain sets in properly. It changes what a day out is, not whether you have one: the beer halls were built for this weather, the museums were built by kings, and the Christmas markets only exist because it is dark by teatime.
By city — the north-south line
Hamburg to Munich is six hours of track and most of the country.
Hamburg
Berlin
Leipzig
Dresden
Nuremberg
MunichNewest reviews, from Cologne to Dresden.
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1,5 Hour Private Guided Walking Tour: Cathedral and Old Mainz
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EUMETSAT – weather data for the world “made in Darmstadt”
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Festive Concert at Schleißheim with Residence-Soloists
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Small-Group Berlin Sightseeing and Food Tour of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte
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From Prague: Bastei and Dresden Small-Group Day Trip
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WWII Sites with Optional EL-DE Haus Private Tour
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Freiburg in Breisgau Scavenger Hunt and Sights Self-Guided Tour
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