Things to Do in Germany

Hamburg’s alter ego is raffish St. Pauli and the Reeperbahn, forever synonymous with strip clubs and the Beatles.

The city’s red light district, the Reeperbahn is a pedestrianised street lined with clubs, brothels and sex shops. Its proximity to the port has attracted sailors for centuries, while more recently the Beatles cut their musical teeth playing the seedy clubs here back in the early 1960s.

The scene is still in-your-face but a little less brutal these days, and up-market restaurants and theaters hosting shows like Cats and the Lion King rub shoulders with the less family-friendly forms of entertainment.

Trade has always been Hamburg’s raison d’etre, and today the Port of Hamburg is the largest in Germany.

The sprawling port takes up more than an eighth of the city, with around 12,000 ships a year delivering and picking up goods.

A river cruise is a good way to get an idea of the port’s size and activity, or step aboard the Rickmer Rickmers windjammer to learn more about Hamburg’s rich maritime history. The nearby Cap San Diego is another museum ship well worth stepping aboard.

The Rheinisches Landesmuseum is the archaeological museum in Trier, Germany. It is one of the most important archaeological museums in the country and documents 200,000 years of history. Exhibits show the cultural development of this region starting with prehistoric times until the end of the 18th century. There are around 4,500 objects on display, including the largest mosaic collection north of the Alps. Visitors can also see vivid scenes of daily life on the huge stone burial monuments from Neumagen. The world's largest Roman gold coin collection with over 2,600 gold coins can be found here as well.

The museum has an impressive permanent collection as well as space for temporary exhibitions. Free audio guides are available, and twice a day visitors can experience “In the Realm of Shadows,” a theater production among the Roman burial monuments. The museum is also an important research facility, and almost everything on display here was excavated by the museum itself.

The busy riverside promenade of St. Goar is lorded over by the sprawling ruins of Burg Rheinfels, once the mightiest fortress on the Rhine and a must-see. Built in 1245 by the local counts of Katzenelnbogen as a base for their toll-collecting operation, it withstood attack from 28,000 of Louis XIV's French troops in 1692, just one of the many attacks made on it. Eventually it was Napoleon and his French Revolutionary army who destroyed the place in 1797 with the help of explosives.

The castle's size and labyrinthine layout is astonishing. Not just children love exploring the gigantic vault cellar, subterranean tunnels and mine galleries, while keeping an eye and ear out for ghosts. In the only complete room of the castle there is a museum.

Potsdam acquired some importance when the Great Elector of Brandenburg Frederick William established his residence here, where a small garrison was housed from 1640 onward; the site's military function was strengthened by the young Prussian monarchy. Potsdam later changed under the power of Frederick II the Great, who wanted to establish a 'Prussian Versailles' next to the garrison town, which was to be his main residence. Landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné  united the various palaces and parks of Potsdam into a unique park landscape, and it was designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1990.

Sanssouci Park, the most popular attraction in Potsdam, is the result of many influences from Italy, England, Flanders, Paris and Dresden. The 290-hectare park was laid out around several buildings including the Sanssouci Palace, the Orangery palace, the New Palace, the Charlottenhof Palace and the Roman Baths, while also hosting a magnificent botanical garden created in 1950. Some 4,600 different plant species from tropical and subtropical regions around the world are cultivated in more than 10 greenhouses, while about 4,000 different types of plants grow in the outdoor facilities along both sides of Maulbeerallee Street.