The castle, the Wall, the beer hall.
Which Neuschwanstein day actually gets you inside the rooms. Which Spree boat keeps a roof over you. What a table at Oktoberfest really costs. Reviews of every tour you can book in Germany, one at a time.
What most first trips to Germany are built around.
A castle in the Alps, a divided capital, a river of vineyards, a brewery with its own opening hours, an opera house rebuilt from rubble. Start here, and the rest of the map fills in behind it.
Berlin: pick the version of the city you want.
All Berlin tours →
Nowhere else in Europe changes character street by street the way Berlin does. The government quarter, the Wall, the courtyards behind Hackescher Markt and the canal boats each make a different day out of the same city.
The tours travellers to Germany book most.
Every review →Boats, domes, towers and old towns. These are the days more people take than anything else in the country, and what each one is actually like.
1
Reichstag, Dome and Government District Guided Tour
Reichstag dome and Plenarsaal guided tour in Berlin with free dome registration and rooftop skyline views, about 2.5 hours for $18.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Sex and Crime in St. Pauli Tour for Ages 18 +
from $29
3
1-Hour City Tour by Boat with Guaranteed Seating
from $25
4
TV Tower Standard Entrance Ticket
from $33
5
Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip
from $94
6
1.5-Hour Harbor and Speicherstadt Day Cruise
from $40
7
Semperoper Tickets and Guided Tour
from $18
8
Boat Tour Along the River Spree
from $34
South of the Danube, the mountains take over.
Munich empties into the Alps in under two hours. Castles Ludwig II bankrupted himself building, a salt mine you enter on a wooden train, an Eagle’s Nest road cut into limestone, and beer halls that have been pouring since long before any of it.
Three ways to do Neuschwanstein.
The castle interior is guided-only, timed, and capped. That single fact decides which of these three days suits you.
Neuschwanstein and Linderhof in one run
Out of Munich early, up through the Ammergau Alps, Linderhof’s mirrored hall before lunch, then the Marienbrücke view of Neuschwanstein while the light is still on the north face.
The full day at Hohenschwangau
The same road south, but the whole afternoon in one village: both castles visible from the lake path, the Alpsee to swim in if it is warm, and no second palace to be marched round.
Already down there? Book the slot
Staying in Füssen or Hohenschwangau gets you the first entries of the day, before the Munich coaches land. The interior is guided-only on a fixed clock, so the slot is the whole trick.
The stretch between Koblenz and Rüdesheim earns the slow boat.
Sixty-five kilometres of gorge with a castle on nearly every bend, vineyards running at an angle no tractor should manage, and the Lorelei rock in the middle of it. The Moselle does the same thing quieter, with better wine and fewer coaches.
All 33 Rhine cruises →
What a day out in Germany costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted into what it costs. Prices are in US dollars, and a very good German day starts at the price of two beers.
City walks, river boats, museum entry, brewery tastings and the tower tickets. Most of Germany lives in this band.
The full-day trips: castles from Munich, the Rhine from Frankfurt, food tours with enough tastings to count as lunch.
Private guides, long-distance day trips and the once-a-trip splurges — Oktoberfest tents included.
Three things Germany does that nowhere else bothers with.
Cathedrals and old towns are everywhere in Europe. The beer purity law, the Advent market and a man paid to walk the streets with a halberd belong to this country.
The Brewery Tour
German brewing still works to the Reinheitsgebot, the purity rule of 1516: water, barley, hops, and later yeast. What it produces is regional to the point of stubbornness — Kölsch in thin 0.2 litre glasses in Cologne, dark Alt fifty kilometres away in Düsseldorf, wheat beer in Bavaria, and a waiter in each city who will keep replacing your glass until you put the mat on top of it.
- 1Brewery Tour with 3 Kölsch Beer Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,108 reviews
- 2St. Pauli Highlights Guided Tour with Beer for 18+★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,353 reviews
- 3Bavarian Beer and Food Evening Tour in Munich★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,575 reviews
The Christmas Market
The Christkindlmarkt is a fixed season, not an attraction: most open in the last week of November and close on or just before Christmas Eve. Nuremberg, Dresden and Munich run the oldest of them, the Dresden Striezelmarkt since 1434. Glühwein is served in a deposit mug you either return or keep, and the stalls are outdoors in a German December — dress for the hour, not the photographs.
- 1Original Munich Christmas Market Tour with Festive Wine and Food★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 85 reviews
- 2Munich Christmas Market Food Tour with Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 54 reviews
- 3Christmas Markets Food & Drink Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 50 reviews
The Night Watchman
Before street lighting, walled towns paid a Nachtwächter to walk the lanes after dark with a horn, a lantern and a halberd, calling the hours and watching for fire. Rothenburg, Heidelberg, Bremen, Erfurt and Munich all still send one out, in costume, at dusk. It sounds like a gimmick and turns out to be the best hour of local history you can buy.
- 1The Original Night Watchman Tour in Lantern Light★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 6,653 reviews
- 2Night Watchman’s Tour of St. Pauli in German★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 4,818 reviews
- 31.5-Hour Public Tour with Night Watchman Bremme★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,116 reviews
Memorial sites and twentieth-century history
Sachsenhausen, at Oranienburg north of Berlin, and Dachau, north-west of Munich, are memorials on the grounds of former concentration camps. Admission to both memorial sites is free; a guided visit adds the journey from the city, a reserved time and an educator. The Third Reich and Berlin Wall listings below are guided history walks through the cities themselves.
Hamburg is a port first and a city second.
The Elbe brings container ships to within a few hundred metres of the Elbphilharmonie, the Speicherstadt warehouses stand on oak piles over their own canals, and the Reeperbahn does not start until most cities have finished. Bremen, Lübeck and Kiel keep the same salt in the air.
- 1Sex and Crime in St. Pauli Tour for Ages 18 +from $29
- 21.5-Hour Harbor and Speicherstadt Day Cruisefrom $40
- 390-Minute Evening Lights Harbor Cruisefrom $27
Four things in Germany that will not wait for your arrival.
Most of this country can be booked from the hotel the night before. These four cannot: they run on registration lists, timed slots, tent contracts and a calendar that closes on Christmas Eve.
- 01Reichstag, Dome and Government District Guided TourThe dome is free but you must be registered in advance, by name, and carry the ID you registered with.
- 02Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day TripInside the castle is guided-only, on a timed ticket. Summer slots sell out days ahead and there is no standby queue.
- 03Beer and Food Tour with Dinner & Oktoberfest MuseumTent tables are contracted months in advance. Turning up in late September without one means standing outside.
- 04Original Munich Christmas Market Tour with Festive Wine and FoodThe markets run from late November to Christmas Eve and then stop. There is no off-season version.
German winters are long. The good news is indoors.
Rain from October, dark by four in December, and a national talent for building things with roofs on. Museum islands, brewery cellars, opera houses, comedy clubs and Baroque palace halls all read better in bad weather than good.
By city — where you are staying
Six stops and one very good train line.
Hamburg
Berlin
Dresden
Bamberg
Munich
FüssenLatest Germany tour reviews.
All recent →
Best of Düsseldorf – The Highlight-Tour
Read our review →
Oldenburg: “Executioners, witches & scoundrels” (crime thriller tour)
Read our review →
Neighborhood tour with a former dominatrix
Read our review →
Tour to Rothenburg ob der Tauber from Nuremberg in Spanish
Read our review →
Lieser: Covered wagon ride, the rolling wine tasting with picnic basket
Read our review →
Walking tour of the old town with all your senses
Read our review →
Berlin Food & Cultural Tour: Must-Try German & Berliner Classics
Read our review →