Germany: Berlin, Dresden, Rothenburg and Munich

1. Day 1: Arrive in Berlin

   Berlin Brandenburg Airport to your hotel in Mitte, then the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag on foot

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Berlin
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), about 25 km south-east of the centre, where a driver meets you in the arrivals hall for the transfer of about 45 minutes to your hotel in Mitte. Plan to land by about 2 pm; the exact latest arrival is confirmed with your final itinerary. At about 5 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group in the lobby for a short briefing on the ten days ahead, then we walk out together to get our bearings. Unter den Linden leads to the Brandenburg Gate, finished in 1791 and for 28 years stranded in the no-man's-land of the Berlin Wall. A few minutes north is the Reichstag, where the German parliament sits under its glass dome, and a few minutes south the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, 2,711 concrete slabs on a sloping field that you walk into rather than look at. We finish at a local restaurant with a welcome dinner of Berlin and Brandenburg dishes.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Evening walk: Unter den Linden, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the 5 pm briefing

   Activity: About an hour on foot on level city pavements.

2. Day 2: The Wall, Mitte and the Reichstag dome

   Berlin on foot and by tram: Bernauer Strasse, Museum Island, Gendarmenmarkt, Checkpoint Charlie; the Reichstag dome in the evening

   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Berlin
   Day 2 details

   We start at 9 am at the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse, the one place in the city where the full depth of the border strip survives: the inner wall, the patrol road, a watchtower and the outer wall, with the escapes through tunnels and apartment windows marked along the street. The viewing platform at the documentation centre shows it from above. From there a local Berlin guide takes us south through Mitte by tram and on foot: Museum Island, listed by UNESCO in 1999, the Berlin Cathedral, Bebelplatz, where the Nazis burned books in May 1933, and Gendarmenmarkt, with Schinkel's Konzerthaus between its two domed churches. We end at Checkpoint Charlie and the open-air exhibition of the Topography of Terror at about 1 pm. Lunch and the afternoon are yours; the Neues Museum, home of the bust of Nefertiti, is a short walk from the hotel. In the evening we go up into the Reichstag dome on a pre-registered slot and walk the spiral ramp above the parliament chamber as the city lights come on.

   Included

   • Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse with your guide
   • Guided walk through Mitte with a local guide: Museum Island, the Berlin Cathedral, Bebelplatz, Gendarmenmarkt, Checkpoint Charlie and the Topography of Terror
   • Berlin public transport tickets for the walk
   • The Reichstag dome in the evening

   Optional experiences

   • The Neues Museum or another Museum Island museum in the afternoon (entry at your own cost)

   Easier option: Leave the walk at Gendarmenmarkt and take a taxi back to the hotel; rejoin for the Reichstag dome in the evening.

   More active option: Hire a bike in the afternoon and follow the Berlin Wall Trail east to the East Side Gallery along the Spree, with your guide's route.

   Free time: Afternoon free in Berlin

   Activity: About 4 hours on foot in the morning on level pavements, with short tram rides. Bring your passport for the Reichstag security check.

   

3. Day 3: Potsdam: Sanssouci and the Glienicke Bridge

   Berlin to Potsdam and back by minibus

   • Drive about 1.5 h
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Berlin
   Day 3 details

   A short day out of the city: about 40 minutes by minibus to Potsdam, the summer seat of the Prussian kings. We are at Sanssouci Palace for one of the first timed tours of the morning, inside Frederick the Great's single-storey rococo retreat, finished in 1747 at the top of a staircase of glass-fronted vine terraces. Afterwards walk through the park, part of the UNESCO-listed palaces and parks of Potsdam and Berlin, past the gilded Chinese House to the Orangery. Lunch is on your own in the Dutch Quarter, red-brick gabled houses built for Dutch craftsmen in the 1730s. On the way back we visit Cecilienhof, the last palace built by the Hohenzollerns, where Truman, Stalin and Churchill, then Attlee, met for the Potsdam Conference in the summer of 1945, and stop at the Glienicke Bridge, where the Americans and Soviets exchanged captured agents during the Cold War. We are back in Berlin by about 3:30 pm, with the rest of the afternoon and the evening free.

   Included

   • Sanssouci Palace on an early timed tour
   • Walk through Sanssouci park to the Chinese House and the Orangery
   • Cecilienhof and the Potsdam Conference rooms
   • The Glienicke Bridge

   Easier option: Skip the park walk and wait at the cafe by the windmill near the palace; the minibus collects you for Cecilienhof.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Berlin

   Activity: About 3 hours on foot on gravel park paths, with the terrace steps at Sanssouci.

4. Day 4: By train to Dresden

   Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Dresden by fast train, then the Altstadt on foot and Loschwitz by tram

   • By train
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Dresden
   Day 4 details

   After breakfast we take the fast intercity train from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Dresden, about two hours across the flat Brandenburg and Saxon countryside, in seats reserved together. Our minibus and driver meet the train in Dresden and take the luggage on to the hotel; from here on they carry it every day. After lunch near the Neumarkt a local guide walks us through the Altstadt, rebuilt after the bombing of February 1945. The Frauenkirche lay as a heap of rubble for nearly fifty years and was reconsecrated in 2005, its old blackened stones set back in place among the new. We pass the Procession of Princes, a mural about 102 m long made of Meissen porcelain tiles, look out over the Elbe from Brühl's Terrace, and finish in the Zwinger's baroque courtyard beside the Semperoper. Then we visit the Historic Green Vault, the treasure chamber of the Saxon electors, on a timed entry. Late in the afternoon we ride the tram east to Loschwitz, cross the Blue Wonder bridge and take the suspension railway up for the view back along the river.

   Included

   • Reserved seats on the fast intercity train from Berlin to Dresden
   • Lunch near the Neumarkt
   • Guided Altstadt walk with a local guide: the Frauenkirche, the Procession of Princes, Brühl's Terrace, the Zwinger and the Semperoper
   • The Historic Green Vault on a timed entry
   • Tram to Loschwitz, the Blue Wonder bridge and the suspension railway

   Easier option: Skip the Loschwitz outing and spend the late afternoon in the Altstadt or at the hotel.

   More active option: Walk back down from the Loschwitz viewpoint by the steps and lanes of the hillside, then along the Elbe meadows towards the old town.

   Free time: Evening free in Dresden

   Activity: About 3 hours on foot on level old-town paving; the luggage goes by minibus.

   

5. Day 5: Mödlareuth and on to Bamberg

   Dresden to Mödlareuth, then Bamberg

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Bamberg
   Day 5 details

   We leave Dresden at about 8:30 and drive about two hours south-west to Mödlareuth, a hamlet of around fifty people split by a stream that for four decades was the border between East and West Germany. A concrete wall ran through it from 1966, and American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin. Part of the wall, a watchtower and the fences of the border strip still stand at the open-air site of the German-German Museum, and after Bernauer Strasse it shows what division meant in the countryside. Lunch is at a Franconian inn on the road south, then about an hour and a quarter more brings us to Bamberg by mid-afternoon, so you arrive while the town is open. Bamberg came through the Second World War largely intact, and its old town is listed by UNESCO. Settle in, take an easy walk along the river with your guide, and in the evening we sit down to a Franconian dinner in a traditional brewery tavern, with a glass of Rauchbier, the city's smoked beer.

   Included

   • The German-German Museum at Mödlareuth, with the open-air border site
   • Lunch at a Franconian inn
   • Riverside walk in Bamberg with your guide
   • Franconian dinner in a brewery tavern with a smoked-beer tasting

   Free time: Late afternoon free in Bamberg before dinner

   Activity: About 3.5 hours on the road, split by the museum (about 1.5 hours on foot outdoors) and lunch.

6. Day 6: Bamberg, Nuremberg and into Rothenburg

   Bamberg to Nuremberg, then Rothenburg ob der Tauber

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Rothenburg ob der Tauber
   Day 6 details

   A morning walk through Bamberg with a local guide from about 9 am, before the day visitors arrive: the Old Town Hall, built on its own island in the river Regnitz, the half-timbered fishermen's houses of Little Venice, then up the hill to the cathedral, home of the stone Bamberg Horseman and the tomb of Emperor Henry II, and the rose garden of the New Residence with its view over the roofs. Around 11:30 we drive 45 minutes to Nuremberg. After a lunch of the city's small grilled sausages we climb to the Imperial Castle, where the Holy Roman emperors stayed, for the view over the red roofs, then walk down past Albrecht Dürer's house to the Hauptmarkt and its Beautiful Fountain. If you would rather see Courtroom 600, where the Nuremberg trials opened in November 1945, your guide takes you there instead. About an hour and ten minutes more brings us to Rothenburg ob der Tauber by about 5 pm. After dinner on your own, join the Night Watchman's tour, an hour's lantern-lit walk through the walled town.

   Included

   • Guided walk in Bamberg: the Old Town Hall, Little Venice, the cathedral and the New Residence rose garden
   • Lunch in Nuremberg
   • Nuremberg Imperial Castle, Albrecht Dürer's house (outside) and the Hauptmarkt
   • Or Courtroom 600 and the Memorium Nuremberg Trials, in place of the castle
   • The Night Watchman's tour in Rothenburg

   Easier option: In Nuremberg, skip the climb to the castle and stay around the Hauptmarkt and the riverside cafes.

   More active option: Climb the Sinwell Tower at the Imperial Castle for the widest view over the city.

   Free time: Evening free in Rothenburg before the Night Watchman's tour

   Activity: About 4 hours on foot on cobbles, with the steep lane up to Nuremberg's castle.

7. Day 7: Rothenburg early, then the Romantic Road to Munich

   Rothenburg ob der Tauber to Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen on the Romantic Road, then Munich

   • Drive about 3.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Munich
   Day 7 details

   Rothenburg is at its best before the day coaches arrive mid-morning, so we are out at 8:30. Walk a stretch of the covered wall walk, then down past the Plönlein, the little square where two gate towers meet, to the Burggarten for the view over the Tauber valley. In St Jakob's Church your guide shows you Tilman Riemenschneider's Holy Blood Altar, carved in limewood around 1500 to 1505. The market square and the Town Hall come next, with time for coffee before we leave at about 11:30. The Romantic Road runs south through farmland to Dinkelsbühl, a walled town with almost nothing modern inside its gates, where we stop for lunch and a short walk. Nördlingen follows: its ring of walls sits inside the Ries, a crater about 24 km across left by a meteorite some 15 million years ago, and the Daniel tower looks out over all of it. From there it is about two hours to Munich, arriving around 6 pm for a free evening.

   Included

   • Early walk in Rothenburg: the wall walk, the Plönlein, the Burggarten and the market square
   • St Jakob's Church and the Holy Blood Altar
   • Lunch and a short walk in Dinkelsbühl
   • Nördlingen and its town walls

   Easier option: Skip the wall walk's steep steps and stroll the market square and the Plönlein at street level.

   More active option: Climb the Daniel tower in Nördlingen, about 350 steps, for the view across the Ries crater.

   Free time: Evening free in Munich

   Activity: About 3 hours on foot on cobbles and wooden wall steps; about 3.5 hours on the road, in three legs.

   

8. Day 8: Neuschwanstein and the Wieskirche

   Munich to Schwangau and Neuschwanstein, then the Wieskirche and back to Munich

   • Drive about 4 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Munich
   Day 8 details

   The longest drive of the trip, about four hours in all, split by the castle, lunch and a church, so we keep two more nights in the same Munich hotel instead of moving on. We leave at 8 am and drive about two hours south-west, with the Alps rising ahead across the Allgäu meadows. From Hohenschwangau village you walk up to Neuschwanstein, about 40 minutes on a paved lane, or ride the shuttle bus or horse carriage, for one of the morning guided tours on tickets we book weeks ahead. King Ludwig II began the castle in 1869 and died in 1886 having lived in it only a few months; in 2025 it joined the UNESCO list with his other palaces. The tour of about 30 minutes takes in the Throne Hall and the Singers' Hall. Afterwards walk to Mary's Bridge, when it is open, for the view over the gorge, then down to lunch in the village and an hour by the Alpsee. On the way back we stop at the Wieskirche, a rococo pilgrimage church in a meadow, and reach Munich by about 5:30 pm.

   Included

   • Neuschwanstein Castle guided tour, tickets booked in advance
   • The shuttle bus or horse carriage up to the castle
   • Mary's Bridge viewpoint, when open
   • Lunch in Hohenschwangau and time by the Alpsee
   • The Wieskirche

   Easier option: Ride the shuttle bus or horse carriage up and back down, and wait by the Alpsee while others walk to Mary's Bridge.

   More active option: Walk up to the castle and back down through the Pöllat gorge path, when it is open.

   Free time: Evening free in Munich

   Activity: About 4 hours of driving in two legs, with the castle and lunch between. About 3 hours on foot, mostly uphill to the castle, with many stairs on the tour.

   

9. Day 9: Munich, and a choice for the afternoon

   Munich on foot: the Residenz, Odeonsplatz, Marienplatz and the Viktualienmarkt; the Dachau Memorial or a free afternoon; a beer hall evening

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in Munich
   Day 9 details

   We start at the Residenz, the palace of the Wittelsbach dukes, electors and kings of Bavaria, when it opens, before the groups arrive. Your guide leads you through the Antiquarium, a long vaulted Renaissance hall lined with busts, and the Imperial Hall with its chandeliers and painted ceiling. Then a walk with a local Munich guide past the Feldherrnhalle on Odeonsplatz and through the old town to Marienplatz for the 11 am Glockenspiel on the New Town Hall, the two domed towers of the Frauenkirche and the stalls of the Viktualienmarkt, where lunch is on your own. The afternoon is a choice. Join your guide and an official memorial guide at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, about 30 minutes north-west in our minibus: the first camp the Nazis opened, in March 1933, and the model for those that followed. Or keep the afternoon free for the English Garden, the Alte Pinakothek or a rest. In the evening we sit down together for a farewell dinner in a traditional Munich beer hall.

   Included

   • The Residenz Museum at opening, with the Antiquarium and the Imperial Hall
   • Guided old-town walk with a local guide: Odeonsplatz, Marienplatz and the Glockenspiel, the Frauenkirche and the Viktualienmarkt
   • Guided visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site with an official memorial guide (afternoon, optional within the price)
   • Farewell dinner in a traditional beer hall, with your first drink

   Easier option: Take the free afternoon instead of Dachau and rest before the farewell dinner.

   More active option: Walk the length of the English Garden in the free afternoon, past the Eisbach surfers to the Chinese Tower beer garden.

   Free time: Afternoon free for those who skip Dachau

   Activity: About 4 hours on foot in the morning on level paving, and about 2.5 hours on foot at the Dachau memorial. The guided memorial visit is for guests aged 14 and over.

   

10. Day 10: Auf Wiedersehen, Munich

    Munich to Munich Airport

    • Drive about 45 min
    • Breakfast
    Day 10 details

    A last breakfast together, then the morning is yours until the airport transfer. With a later flight there is time for one more walk: through the Hofgarten to the English Garden, where surfers ride the standing wave on the Eisbach at the park's southern edge, or back to the Viktualienmarkt for a pretzel and a coffee. Munich Airport (MUC) lies about 40 km north-east of the centre, roughly 45 minutes by road, and our transfers leave the hotel at set times through the morning and around midday, matched to the group's flights when we confirm your dates. Your guide sees you onto the transfer and checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 1 pm, or stay on: we can book extra nights in Munich, and the main station has direct trains to Salzburg, Vienna and Zurich if you want to carry on through Europe.

    Included

    • Transfer to Munich Airport (MUC)

    Free time: Morning free until your transfer

    Activity: Book a flight leaving Munich after about 1 pm.

Wildlife and weather: April and May bring fresh green countryside and fewer visitors; June to August is warm, often 25 °C or more, with the longest evenings and the busiest days at Neuschwanstein and in Rothenburg; September and October are mild and golden but overlap Oktoberfest, when Munich hotels cost much more and we price those dates separately. Expect some rain in any month, and cooler, changeable weather near the Alps on day 8.

• Berlin3 nights
• Dresden1 night
• Bamberg1 night
• Rothenburg ob der Tauber1 night
• Munich3 nights