Best places to visit in Germany: top cities, regions and sights

Nights are the minimum that does the place justice, not a maximum. All legs below work by train; fly into one city and out of another to avoid backtracking.

Step 1: decide how many nights you actually have. Seven nights buys two bases. Ten nights buys three, with one long train leg. Fourteen nights is the point where the east plus Bavaria route works without rushing.

Step 2: pick your pair. Berlin plus Munich is the default: capital history and museums, then Bavaria with the Alps and castles as day trips. Berlin plus Cologne and the Rhine suits travellers who want the river, the cathedral and small towns rather than a big second city. Hamburg replaces Cologne if you prefer the north and the coast.

Step 3: add a third stop only if it sits on the line. Dresden is on the Berlin–Prague route, so it slots in between Berlin and Bavaria. Bamberg and Nuremberg sit between Dresden and Munich. Heidelberg and the Black Forest sit south-west, near Frankfurt, and are awkward to bolt onto a Berlin–Munich week.

Step 4: choose the season. May to September is the safe window for cities, the Rhine, the Alps and the Baltic. December is the second peak for Christmas markets in Nuremberg, Dresden, Cologne and Bamberg. January to March is for ski resorts in the Bavarian Alps and city museums, not for the coast.

Step 5: book the long legs early. High-speed ICE trains between Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and Munich are the backbone; a flexible fare bought on the day costs far more than a fixed Sparpreis ticket bought weeks ahead (check current prices).

The most common mistake is treating Germany as one compact country. Berlin to Munich is roughly 4 hours by ICE, Berlin to Cologne about 4 h 30, Cologne to Munich about 4 h 30. Every extra base costs you half a day in transit, so three bases in a week means you mostly see train interiors.

The second mistake is day-tripping Neuschwanstein from Munich and arriving with the coaches. Sleeping in Füssen or Schwangau for one or two nights lets you reach the castle early and combine it with the Alpine lakes.

Third: Munich in late September and early October is Oktoberfest, and December is Christmas-market season. Both are worth doing, but hotel prices and availability change sharply, so book months ahead (check).

Fourth: many museums and memorials close on Mondays, and some state museums have one late evening a week. Check each site's own page before you build a day around it.

Finally, memorial sites such as Dachau, Sachsenhausen and the Nuremberg documentation centre are free or low-cost but need two to three hours and a quiet head; do not stack one on top of a full sightseeing day.