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. Raven Travel Guides Germany include:

• 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.

Potsdam

For its Prussian rulers, Potsdam was a garden kingdom. The city grew from a garrison town to become the favourite of the Hohenzollern kings, a place to lay out parks, gardens and palaces. This suited the laid-back feel of the city built around lakes.

Frederick the Great became particularly fond of Potsdam, laying out a park with pavilions and building two palaces, the most famous the Rococo Schloß Sanssouci. The park was the first of three established before the mid-19th century, and before the end of World War I there were about 150 assorted buildings belonging to the royal house. The last, Schloß Cecilienhof, became the venue for the 1945 Potsdam Conference. The parks and palaces are UNESCO world heritage listed.

Potsdam also became ethnically diverse when French Huguenots, Bohemian weavers, Dutch settlers and Russian soldiers settled around the city, all leaving their mark architecturally.

In the 20th century the outlying suburb Babelsberg became a centre for film production, a role it still plays. Filmpark Babelsberg is a theme park and information centre set for visitors to learn more about filmmaking.