The 10 Best Travel Experiences in Germany

Perched high above the Bavarian Alps, Neuschwanstein Castle is the fairy-tale fortress that inspired Disney's Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Commissioned by King Ludwig II in 1869, it took 17 years to build and remains one of Germany's most visited attractions.

The world's largest beer festival, held on Munich's Theresienwiese since 1810, where tents run by the city's traditional breweries fill each day with brass bands, dirndls and lederhosen, and steins raised in unison.

Beyond the beer it's a proper folk festival, with fairground rides and grounds that hold over 100,000 people at once.

A silhouette of spires and battlements on an isolated hilltop above the Swabian Alps, ancestral seat of the Prussian royal family.

The current structure is a 19th-century neo-Gothic rebuild, furnished with royal Prussian treasures including the crown of Wilhelm II.

On clear autumn mornings fog fills the valley below and the castle appears to float above it, and the ramparts give views across the whole region.

Berlin carries its twentieth-century history openly — the Brandenburg Gate, the remaining stretch of Wall at the East Side Gallery, and the glass dome of the Reichstag sit alongside a city that has rebuilt itself into one of Europe's most creative capitals.

Museum Island holds five major museums on a single stretch of the Spree, while neighbourhoods like Kreuzberg run a nightlife and food scene that runs well past midnight.

The Rhine Gorge is a 65-kilometre stretch of the river between Koblenz and Bingen where more than 40 medieval castles sit on vineyard-terraced hillsides above the water, including the legendary Loreley rock where a siren was said to lure sailors to their deaths.

River cruises, a scenic rail line, and riverside cycling paths run the length of the valley, with half-timbered wine villages lining the banks at almost every bend.

A blackened Gothic giant beside the Rhine, begun in 1248 and not finished until 1880, with twin spires that made it briefly the tallest building in the world.

It survived the bombing that flattened the city around it.

The 533 steps up the south tower end in a view over the river and the railway station below.

The Zugspitze is Germany's highest peak, and a cable car climbs almost straight from the valley town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen to its summit, where the view on a clear day takes in more than 400 peaks across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.

A small glacier survives near the top, along with a ski area that operates into summer, and the border with Austria runs directly across the summit platform.

The Black Forest is a stretch of dense, dark pine hills in southwestern Germany, dotted with storybook villages, cuckoo-clock workshops, and thermal spa towns like Baden-Baden.

Waterfalls, half-timbered farmhouses, and a network of well-marked hiking trails run through the region, and Triberg's falls — among Germany's highest — draw day-trippers from across the area.

Cologne takes carnival more seriously than almost any other German city, its 'fifth season' building to its real climax on Rose Monday, when satirical floats and marching bands parade through the city centre while crowds shout 'Kolle Alaaf' and scramble for thrown sweets.

Costumed carnival societies, some dating to the 1820s, organise much of the festivities.

Continental Europe's largest theme park, its 18 areas each themed to a different European country in miniaturised, highly detailed architecture, from a scaled Eiffel Tower to a Russian onion-domed pavilion.

It packs in some of Europe's most intense roller coasters - including one of the world's longest, Silver Star - alongside gentler rides suited to families, making it a genuine rival to the bigger American-style parks despite less international name recognition.

An adjoining resort of themed hotels lets visitors easily stretch a visit over two days.