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.

Regensburg

From the Roman period to the present, Regensburg has been an important place. Starting as a legionary fortress, parts of which can be seen today, the city was a base for Bavarian dukes and became a trading city with a stone bridge across the Danube.

As well as the great Gothic cathedral Dom St Peter, there were Romanesque churches such as St Emmeram, St Ulrich, Alte Kapelle, the Niedermünsterkirche and the mysterious-looking Schottenkirche St Jakob.

Even among the town houses there are towers reaching up to 40 metres. Examples such as the Goldener Turm, the Baumburgerhaus, the Kastenmeyer Haus and the Löblturm are little changed from their 13th century appearance.

Regensburg's 14th century Gothic Altes Rathaus was for about 150 years the venue for the Reichstag, the assembly of the princes and cities of the Holy Roman empire. The upper hall where the representatives gathered with their ruler can be toured today. Because of the excellent state of preservation of the old town, it is a world heritage-listed site.