--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Germany (City Guides) Wimup" description: "Browse Wimup's Top 10 guides across Germany, from Berlin to Dortmund and more cities, mapped and filmed. When to go, how the trains work, and where to start." url: https://wimup.com/country/germany type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-06 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Germany Sixteen states, no single centre, and a **fast train between all of them**. Germany spreads its best cities, forests and wine country across the whole map rather than piling them into **one capital**. ## Quick answer First trips work best as two cities and one region. Take **Berlin** for the twentieth century and the nightlife, then **Munich** for the Alps behind it or **Hamburg** for water and warehouses. With a second week, add the **Rhine valley, the Black Forest or Saxony**. The strongest months are **May, June and September**, and December earns the cold because of the Christmas markets. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May · Jun · Sep - **Ideal length:** 7–10 days - **Budget per day:** $100–180 - **Language:** German - **Getting around:** ICE rail & U-Bahn - **3** City guides - **83,577,140** People - **16** States Germany rewards travellers who pick a region and go deep. Berlin is the loudest opening and the least German-looking stop, and a few hours by ICE buys you Bavaria, the Rhine, the Baltic coast or the Black Forest, each with its own food, dialect and drinking hours. ## 3 German city guides 1. [Berlin](https://wimup.com/city/berlin.md): Europe · 10 picks 2. [Dortmund](https://wimup.com/city/dortmund.md): Europe · 10 picks 3. [Regensburg](https://wimup.com/city/regensburg.md): Europe · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 83,577,140 - **Area:** 357,600 km² - **Density:** 233.7 / km² - **Capital:** Berlin - **Major cities:** Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Euro (€) Cards are accepted almost everywhere now, but bakeries, market stalls and old-school bars still prefer cash. Keep a note or two on you. - **Language:** German English is common in the cities, in hotels and among younger Germans. Bitte, danke and tschüss cover most counters, and opening in German changes the tone of an exchange. - **Calling code:** +49 - **Power:** 230V · Type C & F - **Emergency:** 112 112 reaches an ambulance or the fire service anywhere in the country. The police have their own number, 110. - **Visa:** Schengen · 90 days Germany is in the Schengen area, so many nationalities enter visa-free for up to 90 days in any 180. Confirm the rule for your own passport with the Federal Foreign Office before you book. - **Getting around:** ICE rail Deutsche Bahn's ICE trains link the big cities in a few hours each. The Deutschlandticket, a rolling monthly pass, covers regional trains, buses, trams and the U-Bahn nationwide, though not the ICE. - **Sundays:** Shops closed Sunday closing is law, not habit. Supermarkets shut, so buy on Saturday and give the day to museums, parks and a long lunch. - **Tipping:** Round up Service is included. Round up to the next euro or add a little on a bigger bill, and say the total you want to pay as you hand the money over. - **Quiet hours:** Ruhezeit Noise rules are taken seriously in flats: late evenings and all of Sunday are for keeping it down. Nobody minds a party, they mind a drill. ## When to visit - **Jan** - **Feb** - **Mar** - **Apr** (good) - **May** (best) - **Jun** (best) - **Jul** (peak) - **Aug** (peak) - **Sep** (best) - **Oct** (good) - **Nov** - **Dec** (good) ## Fun fact Berlin holds about 3.7 million of Germany's 83.6 million people, under five percent of the country. Germany spent centuries as a patchwork of states, so Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt each still run an orbit of their own. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Germans have no sense of humour **Reality:** The humour is dry, literal and often aimed at itself. It lands the moment you stop waiting for the joke to be signposted. - **Myth:** Everything runs exactly on time **Reality:** Germans make this joke before you do, usually about the trains. Leave slack in a tight connection and check the DB app before you leave the hotel. - **Myth:** It is all lederhosen and beer halls **Reality:** That is Bavaria, and only part of it. Hamburg is maritime and understated, Cologne drinks Kölsch in small glasses, and Berlin looks like none of the above. - **Myth:** Germans are cold **Reality:** Direct, not cold. Small talk is thin on the ground, but ask a real question and you get a real answer, usually a more useful one than you expected. - **Myth:** The Autobahn has no speed limit **Reality:** Much of it does, and the rest carries an advisory speed. Roadworks, urban stretches and wet weather all bring limits, and they are enforced. - Say Guten Tag when you walk into a small shop or bakery, and Tschüss on the way out. - Wait for the green man. Crossing on red, especially in front of children, will earn you a comment. - Sort your rubbish, and take bottles back to the supermarket machine. The deposit is refunded on the spot. - Book a table, particularly at weekends and anywhere with a garden. - Carry cash for markets, bakeries and small bars even where cards are taken. - Sunday is quiet by law and by preference. Plan a walk, a gallery or a long breakfast. ## Famous German faces - **Johann Wolfgang von Goethe**: Frankfurt-born poet and author of Faust, the reference point of German letters - **Ludwig van Beethoven**: Born in Bonn, wrote the nine symphonies that carried music into the Romantic era - **Albert Einstein**: Ulm-born physicist behind relativity, Nobel laureate in 1921 - **Angela Merkel**: Chancellor from 2005 to 2021, and the trained physicist who got there - **Johann Sebastian Bach**: Baroque composer, born in Eisenach and cantor at Leipzig's Thomaskirche - **Marlene Dietrich**: Berlin actor and singer who left for Hollywood and never went back - **Michael Schumacher**: Seven-time Formula One world champion, from Hürth near Cologne - **Karl Marx**: Trier-born philosopher whose Das Kapital rearranged twentieth-century politics - **Konrad Adenauer**: First chancellor of West Germany, and the mayor of Cologne before that - **Willy Brandt**: Chancellor whose Ostpolitik won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971 - **Otto von Bismarck**: Prussian minister-president who unified the German states into an empire in 1871 - **Max Planck**: Founder of quantum theory and the namesake of Germany's research institutes - **Robert Koch**: Identified the tuberculosis bacillus and founded modern bacteriology - **Alexander von Humboldt**: Naturalist and explorer who mapped the Americas and invented modern geography - **Werner Heisenberg**: Physicist behind the uncertainty principle, Nobel laureate at 31 - **Richard Wagner**: Composer of the Ring cycle, and of the Bayreuth festival that still stages it - **Johannes Brahms**: Hamburg-born composer of the German Requiem and four symphonies - **Clara Schumann**: Leipzig-born pianist and composer who shaped the concert programme itself - **Kraftwerk**: The Düsseldorf group whose machine music seeded electronic pop worldwide - **Hans Zimmer**: Frankfurt-born film composer, from Rain Man to Dune - **Werner Herzog**: Munich director of Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man, and a voice you already know - **Wim Wenders**: Director of Wings of Desire, which put Cold War Berlin on film for good - **Rainer Werner Fassbinder**: The engine of New German Cinema, with more than forty films before he turned 37 - **Diane Kruger**: Actor known abroad for Inglourious Basterds and at home for In the Fade - **Albrecht Dürer**: Nuremberg painter and printmaker who defined the German Renaissance - **Gerhard Richter**: Dresden-born painter whose blurred photo-paintings hang in every major museum - **Käthe Kollwitz**: Printmaker and sculptor who made grief and war her subject - **Walter Gropius**: Founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919 and exported it to the world - **Franz Beckenbauer**: Won the World Cup as captain in 1974 and as manager in 1990 - **Steffi Graf**: 22 Grand Slam singles titles, and the only Golden Slam in tennis history - **Jürgen Klopp**: Won two Bundesliga titles with Dortmund and the Champions League with Liverpool - **Thomas Mann**: Lübeck novelist of Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain, Nobel laureate in 1929 - **Hermann Hesse**: Author of Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, Nobel laureate in 1946 - **The Brothers Grimm**: Collected the folk tales, and wrote the dictionary of the German language - **Bertolt Brecht**: Playwright of Mother Courage, and founder of the Berliner Ensemble ## Must-try German food - **Schnitzel**: Pork or veal beaten thin, breaded and fried, with lemon and a potato salad alongside. - **Currywurst**: Sliced sausage under curried tomato sauce, eaten standing up at a Berlin Imbiss. - **Bratwurst**: Grilled over beech, handed over in a bread roll with a stripe of mustard. - **Sauerbraten**: Beef marinated for days, then braised into a sweet and sour gravy. - **Rouladen**: Beef rolled around bacon, onion and pickle, and slow-cooked into Sunday lunch. - **Kartoffelsalat**: Potato salad, with vinegar and stock in the south, mayonnaise in the north. - **Weisswurst**: Pale veal sausage with sweet mustard and a pretzel, traditionally eaten before noon. - **Schweinshaxe**: Roast pork knuckle with crackling you can hear across the beer hall. - **Obatzda**: Camembert whipped with butter, paprika and onion, made for a beer garden table. - **Brezn**: The Bavarian pretzel: dark, chewy, salted, and best within an hour of baking. - **Leberkäse**: A baked meatloaf sliced thick into a semmel. Bakery lunch, and no liver in it. - **Himmel un Ääd**: Cologne's black pudding with apple sauce and mashed potato. Heaven and earth, literally. - **Halve Hahn**: A rye roll with aged Gouda and mustard. Anyone expecting half a chicken will be let down. - **Reibekuchen**: Potato fritters fried until the edges shatter, served with apple sauce. - **Pfefferpotthast**: Dortmund's peppery beef stew, thickened with breadcrumbs and eaten with pickles. - **Labskaus**: Hamburg sailor food: corned beef and beetroot hash under a fried egg, with herring. - **Fischbrötchen**: Pickled or fried fish in a roll with onion, bought at the harbour and eaten on the wall. - **Grünkohl mit Pinkel**: Winter kale stewed with a smoked sausage. The north eats it after the first frost. - **Matjes**: Young herring, mild and buttery, with onions, apple and new potatoes. - **Thüringer Rostbratwurst**: The long, marjoram-scented sausage from Thuringia, grilled and protected by name. - **Soljanka**: A sharp, smoky soup that arrived from the east and stayed on menus after 1990. - **Quarkkeulchen**: Saxon curd-cheese and potato cakes, fried and dusted with cinnamon sugar. - **Dresdner Eierschecke**: Three layers of quark, custard and cake, and the reason to sit down in Dresden. - **Maultaschen**: Swabian pasta parcels of meat and spinach, in broth or fried with onions. - **Käsespätzle**: Egg noodles layered with mountain cheese and topped with fried onions. - **Flammkuchen**: Thin dough with crème fraîche, onion and bacon, blistered in a hot oven. - **Schwarzwälder Schinken**: Black Forest ham, smoked over fir and cut fine enough to see through. - **Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte**: Chocolate sponge, cherries and kirsch. The original is boozier than the export version. - **Stollen**: Dense Dresden Christmas bread of fruit and marzipan under a snowfall of sugar. - **Berliner**: A jam doughnut without the hole, called Pfannkuchen in Berlin itself. - **Lebkuchen**: Nuremberg's soft spiced gingerbread, baked on a wafer and sold from Advent. - **Riesling**: The Mosel and Rheingau grape: steep-slope wines that run bone dry to lusciously sweet. - **Kölsch**: Cologne's pale beer, in small glasses that keep arriving until you put the mat on top. - **Weissbier**: Bavarian wheat beer, cloudy and banana-scented, poured slowly into a tall glass. - **Apfelwein**: Frankfurt's tart cider, served from a stoneware jug in the Sachsenhausen taverns. ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Germany? Plan 7 to 10 days for a first trip: three or four in Berlin, then one more city and a region by train. Two weeks lets you add the Alps or the Rhine without changing hotel every night. ### When is the best time to visit Germany? May, June and September. Long days, beer gardens open and lighter crowds than July and August. December is the exception worth the cold, because the Christmas markets are the reason to be there. ### Is Germany expensive to visit? Gentler than most of western Europe. Munich and Frankfurt are the priciest of the big cities, Berlin and the eastern cities the easiest on a budget, and regional trains, bakeries and beer stay reasonable everywhere. ### Do you need to speak German? No. English is widely spoken in cities, hotels and restaurants, and signage in stations is bilingual. A few German words still change the tone, so open with them. ### Is it easy to get around by train? Yes, and it is the best way to travel here. ICE trains connect the major cities in a few hours, regional services reach almost every small town, and one monthly Deutschlandticket covers local transport nationwide. Leave slack in tight connections. ## Related countries - [Italy](https://wimup.com/country/italy.md) - [France](https://wimup.com/country/france.md) - [All of Europe](https://wimup.com/europe) Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.germany.travel/en/home.html?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Visa](https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.