Other Destinations in Germany > Germany Experience

Advantages: Scenery, food, people
Disadvantages: Might be a bit quiet for some people

Passau is an old market town in Bavaria, located at the point where the Inn and Ilz rivers flow into the Danube (or Donau, in the local parlance). It's so close to the Austrian border that if you drop a handful of change in Passau town centre, not all of the coins will land in Germany. Passau is well-connected by road and rail to Munich in Bavaria, and Linz and Salzburg in Austria. This makes it easy for tourists to reach by car from Munich airport, ...
...them) in 21st century Europe, Passau these days derives much of its income from tourism, especially as the terminus for Danube river cruises, as it's the furthest navigable point upriver. From here you can board a boat and motor down to Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade or even all the way to the Black Sea. Alternatively, you can do as we did and take a 1-hour, "three river" cruise which just takes in Passau and its immediate environs. It's the best way ... Read review

Advantages: a destination for family holidays
Disadvantages: none

Our nicest Christmas present was a parcel from England containing a self-made book, half diary, half photo album. It came from a family in St. Ives, Cornwall, Brian and Pam Baker and their 13-year-old twins Nick and Debbie we had met and befriended last summer at a ‘Hock’ (meaning ‘sitting‘ in the Swabian dialect), a festivity during which the people of a village put tables and benches onto the streets, sit together and chat, ...
...pasta) with lentils and sausages, salt pretzels or home-made bread and dripping and drink beer (of course!), but also the wine and cider and the fruit schnapps of the region. We learnt that Brian had been stationed in Germany with the British army, travelled a bit at that time, fell in love with the landscape of the Land Baden-Württemberg in the southwest of Germany and decided to show it to his family one day. The day had come, they had put their ... Read review

Advantages: Beauty. Architecture. Churches. People. Tranquility.
Disadvantages: None

...explain to you just where Lübeck is. Many of you will probably have a good idea where Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg or even Cologne are located, but, if a straw poll amongst my friends and colleagues is anything to go by, not a lot of you will have heard of, let alone know where, Lübeck, is situated. To start with the clue is there in the other German cities mentioned, yes we are in Germany and you get rather warmer with the mention of Hamburg, which ...
...west. Lübeck is located in the far north of Germany very close to, but not quite on, the Baltic coast. Around fifty miles further north of here and you are out of Germany and into Denmark. Whilst it is not a seaside city, its satellite town of Travemunde is. Having not (yet) visited Travemunde - which is administered by the city of Lübeck - this review will be only about the main city. HOW BIG? There is no hard and fast way of explaining the size ... Read review

Advantages: You will be surprised.
Disadvantages: You may be disappointed.

...museum built, the Kunsthalle, in Schwäbisch Hall, 20 km away, it´s regarded as a kind of ´sister institution´. For the Danish architect Henning Larsen, ´the challenge in Schwäbisch Hall lay in creating a building that dared to be modern and yet was in harmony with the architecture and scale of the medieval town.´ He has certainly won the challenge! The massive reinforced concrete structure is clad in local Muschelkalk (this German term is also used ...
...that produces interesting effects. The individual slabs are not simply hung on the face of the structure but are layered, with the split edges overlapping one another. A striking façade of steel and glass sets off the stonework and provides an effective contrast, and gives an open view of the town. The museum sits very close to the neighbouring houses; when strolling through an exhibition the visitors can look out of the large windows directly into ... Read review

Advantages: Interesting, definitely worth a visit
Disadvantages: Saddening

...The first group of Dachau prisoners were taken into “protective custody” and were at first guarded by the Bavarian police (Bavaria being that part of Germany). The place used for holding them was an abandoned First World War munitions factory. Who would have guessed it would turn into such a place that the name would be feared by those living in Nazi Germany and that even today, just over 70 years later, the name could still evoke such ...
...against the guards. “With Dachau as a model, Eicke developed an institution which was intended, by its very existence, to spread fear among the populace, an effective tool to silence every opponent of the regime. Dachau became, in effect, a training ground for the SS.” The Prisoners **************** At first, only known prisoners of the Nazi regime were held. Social Democrats, Communists and Monarchists were forced to live together ... Read review