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Times
06-05-2025
- Times
10 of the best places to visit in Germany
I knew very little about Europe's most populous country when I first met a lass from Lower Saxony, three decades ago. So on visits to my future in-laws, I started to range further afield to get to grips with the nation I was marrying into. Over the years I have discovered mountain ranges, impressive rivers, delightful semi-medieval towns, vineyards and beer gardens. In short, a nation of great variety, and one of Europe's most overlooked tourism destinations, from which I have selected some of my personal favourites. This article contains affiliate links, which may earn us revenue One week Bavaria, including the Romantic Road Two weeks Black Forest, Berlin and the Baltic coast Three weeks the Rhine, the Moselle vineyards and the industrial Ruhr A tight budget the Danube cyclepath, staying in local guesthouses Besides being ridiculously good looking, the half-timbered pastel-painted hilltop town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in northern Bavaria sits at the top of the Romantic Road, a signposted 280-mile themed route that strings together medieval villages like pearls on a necklace. Rothenburg still has its city gates and a nightwatchman, whilst Nördlingen, further south, has a warden whose job it is to climb the 350 steps up the tower of its 15th-century church to call out 'all's well', at 10pm every evening. Stay at the Hotel Gotisches Haus — a restored 13th-century building in the heart of Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Rothenburg is such a picture-postcard destination that it features on Insight Vacations' grand tour of Europe. • Best things to do in Bavaria• Discover our full guide to Germany Germany has a hat-trick of magnificent rivers — the Danube, the Elbe and the Rhine. Each is busy with passenger and freight shipping, but the latter is the most spectacular. Its best bit is the 40-mile-long Rhine Gorge which begins just south of Koblenz, where the river accelerates and the banks rise up, cloaked in vineyards and bristling with castles and legends of Rhinemaidens. Half-timbered towns such as Bacharach or Sankt Goar dot the bank. For hikers, there's a spectacular long-distance trail up on the eastern side. One of the Rhineside castles, Burg Reichenstein, has been converted into a fabulous place to stay. The tour operator Riviera Travel includes the Rhine Gorge in multiple cruise options. • The best new river cruise ships and routes for 2025• Best Rhine river cruises With rolling hills, pretty villages, and the fashionable spa town of Baden-Baden, there's little that's gloomy about the Black Forest. For hikers there's village-to-village trails, and for non-hikers there are scenic drives such as the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse, a spectacular ridgeline route from Baden-Baden to Freudenstadt. There's top quality gastronomy too, particularly in the village of Baiersbronn, home to several Michelin stars. The Bareiss in Baiersbronn is one of the top hotels in Germany, particularly for foodies. This Just Go Holidays tour takes in the timbered houses and rushing waterfalls of the Black Forest, with excursions to Baden-Baden and Freudenstadt. • Berlin v Munich: which is better? If there's one image that is used to represent Germany, it is the extravagant castle of Neuschwanstein, supposedly Walt Disney's inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's Castle. This salvo of turrets stands atop a rock in the foothills of the Alps, and was created by the eccentric castle-builder King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Foothill towns Füssen and Garmisch-Partenkirchen are nearby, hubs for hiking and skiing, in the lee of Germany's highest point (Zugspitze, 2,962m), easily reached by both cable car and cogwheel train. In Füssen, the Luitpoldpark Hotel is the hub of downtown. Southern Bavaria is one of Europe's top destinations, and features in Insight Vacations' Best of Germany itinerary. • Best Christmas markets in Germany Snow-topped in winter and rich in legends, these mountains in Germany's midriff were split between East and West for much of the 20th century. These days the hiking trails are friendly again, and the Harz echoes with the chuntering of steam engines on a privately run narrow gauge network that connects fairytale terminus towns such as half-timbered Wernigerode. The railway runs right up the Brocken (1,414m), a bleak peak where rumour has it that Europe's witches gather on Walpurgisnacht (April 30). The spectacularly preserved Weisser Hirsch is the best address in Wernigerode. Titan Travel's ten-day Berlin, Dresden & the Magnificent Harz Mountains tour includes a railway trip up to Brocken. Nestled in the heart of Europe, Lake Constance (aka Bodensee in German) is shared between Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. So to travel around its circumference is to dip in and out of closely allied cultures, sampling Unesco-registered Stone Age dwellings and baroque towns, set against the backdrop of the Alps. Germany sits on the north bank, where the slopes are carpeted with vineyards and dotted with wellness hotels. Lake ferries head across the water from historic Friedrichshafen. The Bodensee Hotel Sonnenhof is a ten-minute walk from the lake. The lake circumference is ideal cycling territory, as in this Exodus tour. The Moselle rises in France and flows across into Germany to join the Rhine, northwest of Frankfurt. It is the Rhine's smaller sibling, with a lot of the same characteristics — lovely riverside towns and hilltop castles — but more serene and more twisty. The valley is strung like a harp with steep sun-worshipping vineyards, including some of the steepest in the world at Bremmer Calmont. A challenging hiking trail threads through them, there's a peaceful cycle path right beside the river, and plenty of cruise boats, both day-trip and multi-day, on the water. The Moselschlösschen Spa & Resort offers wellness at the water's edge in Traben-Trarbach. Riviera Travel's Grand Cruise of the Moselle and Rhine features 18 days of glorious riverside scenery. Germany's oldest university town, the equivalent of Oxford or Cambridge, sits on the banks of the river Neckar, dominated by its castle. The latter, coupled with a beautifully preserved old town and the sandstone Alte Brücke (Old Bridge) makes it very popular with visitors. The Philosopher's Walk, frequented by the likes of Goethe and Hegel, runs along the far bank. The view across to Heidelberg Castle is one of the most famous in Germany. The Hollander Hof hotel is perfectly placed on the riverside beside the Alte Brücke. The Neckar is a tributary of the Rhine, so Heidelberg is a tour option for many cruise ship operators, including Ruhr, north of Düsseldorf, was the engine of Germany's post-war Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). It's a former coal mining district, but the last mine has closed and some of its heavy industrialisation has found an alternative purpose. Thus Essen's Unesco-registered Zeche Zollverein, the 'world's prettiest coal mine', has a design museum in its coking plant, the former blast furnace that is now the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord has cycle trails and diving tanks, and the Tiger & Turtle is a walkable rollercoaster of a sculpture on a slag heap. Düsseldorf's trendy Me and All hotel serves breakfast with a view in its top-floor lounge. The Essen coal mine is on the itinerary of this nine-day Best of Germany tour. Coastal ports such as Lübeck, Rostock and Wismar were key players in the ancient Hanseatic League, a precursor of the EU, and many of that era's brick-built merchant's houses still line their streets. This coast is also the focus of the traditional beach holiday, before air travel, with traditional resorts at the likes of Warnemünde, Kühlungsborn, Heiligendamm (the posh one) and all over the causeway-connected island of Rügen, particularly at Binz. The Grand at Heiligendamm is one of the Leading Hotels of the World. Lübeck features in the ten-day Highlights of Germany tour from Cosmos. • A selection of the best Baltic cruises• The best secret islands in Europe
Telegraph
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Götterdämmerung, Regents Opera: an ambitious, skeletal take on Wagner
Mounting Wagner's massive Ring cycle in a venue that has been described as 'the spiritual home of British boxing' takes some imagination. But Regents Opera has never been short of either imagination or ambition; they previously staged the first three instalments of their scaled-down Ring at the Freemasons Hall in Covent Garden. Now they have moved to York Hall in Bethnal Green (a leisure centre that was formerly a sports hall with a famous boxing ring) for Götterdämmerung as the tortuous struggle for the Ring reaches its climax in a death-filled denouement. It's an effective but problematic venue, since the audience wraps around three sides of the small platform, leaving the reduced orchestra slightly stranded at the back, on the hall's raised stage. The positive result is a quite exceptional level of direct communication between singers and audience, which was galvanised with attention throughout the five hours of this denouement of the cycle, especially as the personal conflicts reached a height of intensity. The skilful reduction of the band (by Ben Woodward, the conductor) down to 23 players from Wagner's gargantuan forces means 6 violins instead of 32, some woodwind and trumpet, though there are five horns and a bass trombone, with an occasional organ to add weight. The music flows constantly, and only occasionally flags in some interludes: inevitably perhaps, the climactic Funeral March for Siegfried does not make its earth-shattering impact in this form. Regents Opera have built a solid following for their ambitions, and their achievement is to be judged on the highest level: they fielded a cast with some outstanding singer-actors, led by the glorious Brünnhilde of Catherine Woodward, resplendent and assured both in passion and anguish, as the opera leads to her immolation. Her Siegfried, Peter Furlong, is commendably accurate but drier of tone, yet she is well matched by Simon Wilding's commanding, evil Hagen, manipulating all around him, disposing of his father, brother, and Siegfried to recapture the Ring, until the three Rhinemaidens (Jillian Finnamore, Elizabeth Findon and Mae Heydorn) bundle him into the river. The other standout singer is Catherine Backhouse as Waltraute, her long accusatory monologue to her sister Brunnhilde perfectly sculpted; the preening Gunther of Andrew Mayor and the red-head siren Gutrune, Justine Viani, are not quite on this level. Oliver Gibbs's Alberich has only a brief return in this opera, firmly grasped; the black-garbed chorus of Vassals, members of the London Gay Men's Chorus, are admirably forceful. It is the gripping personal interactions between the characters in Caroline Staunton's direction that makes her view of the drama work. There is no magic Tarnhelm helmet to enable disguises, and no funeral pyre for Brunnhilde, just a constant fussy rearrangement of white blocks on the platform, and irritating references to Entartete Kunst (the Nazis' Degenerate Art) which seem to be the puzzling reason why there's a fire extinguisher, cans of beans and a cactus on stage. Stripped to its essence in drama and music, this Götterdämmerung has great potential, and needs no elaboration.
