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.

Worms

Worms will forever be associated with Germany's great medieval epic, the Nibelungenlied, but its real history is just as fascinating. The early Germanic period brought conflict around Worms involving the Burgundians, Franks and Huns that perhaps gave rise to the legend.

One of Germany's great Romanesque cathedrals, the Dom St Peter, stands in a city marked by much medieval architecture, some built over Roman remains.

A prominent medieval Jewish community built a synagogue that was burned by the Nazis but recreated over the original mikveh and a Jewish museum is housed in a medieval school building. The Jewish cemetery is a monument to centuries of the community in Worms.

In Worms, Martin Luther defended his Reformation ideals before an assembly of imperial magnates. A later monument displays statues of Luther and other religious reformers.