Shannon O'Brien Travel Itineraries

The best destinations

Photo of Germany
Photo of Germany

The Best of Germany

#11 best destination in the world

Map view

Pergamon Museum, Berlin

Photo of Berlin

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, built from 1910 to 1930 by order of Emperor Wilhelm II, in Stripped Classicism style
  • Pergamon Museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its architecture and testimony to the evolution of museums as architectural and social phenomena

Europa-Park

Photo of Europa-Park

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Theme park in Rust, covering eighteen themed areas offering around one hundred rides, several shows, and thirteen roller coasters
  • The park includes six hotels, a camping site, a tepee village, and a cinema
  • Europa-Park is the second most visited theme park in Europe after Disneyland Paris

Neuschwanstein Castle

Photo of Neuschwanstein Castle

Best time to visit: late May-early June

Cost: $

  • 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill of the foothills of the Alps in the very south of Germany
  • King Ludwig II of Bavaria felt the need to escape from the constraints he saw himself exposed to in Munich, and commissioned Neuschwanstein Palace on the remote northern edges of the Alps as a retreat but also in honour of composer Richard Wagner, whom he greatly admired
  • Construction began in 1869 but was never completed, and it was opened to the public shortly after King Ludwig II's death in 1886

Plönlein, Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Photo of Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Town in the Franconia region of Bavaria, and is well known for its well-preserved medieval old town
  • It is part of the popular Romantic Road through southern Germany
  • Today it is one of only three towns in Germany that still have completely intact city walls, the other two both also in Bavaria
  • The buildings were constructed around 1884–1903

Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer

Photo of Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • The Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer (Berlin Wall Memorial) commemorates the division of Berlin by the Berlin Wall and the deaths that occurred there
  • The monument was created in 1998 by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Federal State of Berlin
  • It includes a Chapel of Reconciliation, the Berlin Wall Documentation Centre, a 60-metre (200 ft) section of the former border, a window of remembrance and a visitor center

Römerberg, Frankfurt

Photo of Frankfurt

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Public space in Frankfurt, located in front of the Römer building complex, seat of the Frankfurt city administration since the 15th century
  • As the site of numerous imperial coronations, trade fairs and Christmas markets, the square is the historic heart of the medieval Altstadt (old town)

Brandenburg Gate

Photo of Brandenburg Gate

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, built on the orders of Prussian king Frederick William II after restoring the Orangist power by suppressing the Dutch popular unrest
  • One of the best-known landmarks of Germany, it was built on the site of a former city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel
  • Throughout its existence, the Brandenburg Gate was often a site for major historical events and is today considered not only a symbol of the tumultuous histories of Germany and Europe, but also of European unity and peace

Altes Rathaus, Bamberg

Photo of Bamberg

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Landmark building and porcelain museum situated on an island accessible by pedestrian bridges

Cologne Cathedral

Photo of Cologne Cathedral

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Cathedral in Cologne, belonging to the Catholic Church
  • It is a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture
  • At 157 m (515 ft), the cathedral is the tallest twin-spired church in the world, the second tallest church in Europe after Ulm Minster, and the third tallest church of any kind in the world

Reichstag Building

Photo of Reichstag Building

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Historic government building in Berlin that has been the seat of the German Bundestag since 1999
  • Since 1994, the Federal Convention has also met here to elect the Federal President
  • The Neo-Renaissance building was built between 1884 and 1894
  • It housed both the Reichstag of the German Empire and the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic
  • After severe damage in the Reichstag fire of 1933 and during the Second World War, the building was modernised and restored in the 1960s and used for exhibitions and special events

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Photo of Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust
  • It is covered with 2,711 concrete slabs, arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field
  • An attached underground "Place of Information" holds the names of approximately 3 million Jewish Holocaust victims
  • It was inaugurated in 2005, sixty years after the end of World War II in Europe

Berlin Cathedral

Photo of Berlin Cathedral

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Monumental German Evangelical church and dynastic tomb on the Museum Island in Berlin
  • Having its origins as a castle chapel for the Berlin Palace, several structures have served to house the church since the 15th century
  • The church was built from 1894 to 1905 in Renaissance and Baroque Revival styles
  • The listed building is the largest Protestant church in Germany

Photo of East Side Gallery

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Permanent open-air gallery on the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall, that consists of a series of murals painted directly on a 1,316 m (4,318 ft) long remnant of the Berlin Wall
  • In 1990, after the opening of the Berlin Wall, this section was painted by 118 artists from 21 countries
  • The artists commented on the political changes of 1989/90 in a good hundred paintings on the side of the Wall that was formerly facing East Berlin

Museum Island

Photo of Museum Island

Best time to visit: May-Sept

Cost: $

  • Museum complex on Spree Island in the historic heart of Berlin, as one of the most important museum sites in Europe
  • Built from 1830 to 1930, by order of the Prussian Kings, it is a testimony to the architectural and cultural development of museums in the 19th and 20th centuries