The Best Places in Germany

A terrace over the Leda River, a view of the museum harbour, and shrimp soup on the menu: this is a traditional regional restaurant that has been doing its thing in the centre of Leer for long enough that the chef trained here as an apprentice before eventually running the place. The room leans into old inn character with maritime accents, and the kitchen keeps close to North Sea and seasonal produce. Lunch runs a little simpler than dinner.

A casual bistro sharing a building with its fine dining sibling, which means Wednesday and Thursday evenings bring a three-course menu drawn from the kitchen next door, sparkling wine folded in. The rest of the week runs modern, Mediterranean-leaning à la carte, a caviar menu for the ambitious, and a lunchtime daily special that goes fast. The wine-by-the-glass list is taken seriously, and the alcohol-free alternatives are not an afterthought.

Dinner inside a vaulted chapel, ceiling paintings overhead, small plates arriving to share. Zwo20 is a casual modern restaurant in Passau's old town where the kitchen runs Asian sharing cuisine through a European lens, so expect clever little dishes built around things like sous vide pork with soya and honey. The room's historic bones sit in cheerful contrast to the relaxed, buzzy crowd. It's a five-minute walk from the three-river confluence, if you're doing the tourist math.

Neuschwanstein looms directly above the village, which means the König Ludwig has a backdrop most resorts could only photoshop. This adults-only resort in the Allgäu, run by the same family for decades, spreads across a serious stretch of alpine countryside where the spa alone takes up a small village's worth of space, treatments are shaped individually, and the kitchen hunts its game from the hotel's own land. Quietly personal in a way big properties rarely manage.

Floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over thick Bavarian forest set the tone at this family-run wellness resort in the quiet countryside near Büchlberg. The Stemp family has been adding to their plot for three generations, so the place now runs to multiple pools, saunas, and a rotating calendar of activities. Rooms mix warm wood and natural textiles with that view, which does a lot of the decorating work on its own.

An attic-level infinity pool peering over a medieval cathedral through the hotel's original gabled roof is a strong opening argument for a place to stay. This boutique hotel in one of Germany's most preserved medieval towns has been thoroughly modernized, the old half-timbering and romantic staircase kept intact while rooms went open-plan with pale parquet and dark beams. Some suites add a lofted sleeping area and a hanging swing sofa, because why not.

Cupboards built from old French shutters and furniture gathered from across Europe set the tone at this boutique hotel in quiet Lüdinghausen. Three connected houses, one of them the oldest residence in town, make up the property, with interiors that mix contemporary and historical without visible strain. There's no full restaurant, but the café pulls its weight with a French breakfast and cake well into the afternoon.

Every one of the 27 suites at this design hotel takes a different graphic swing, from oversized prints to whimsical light fixtures, and the monochrome one called Whiteout is somehow still louder than most. It sits in the baroque river town of Pirna, with Dresden on one side and Saxon Switzerland's sandstone wilderness on the other, and the courtyard below supplies all the calm the interiors politely refuse to provide.

A thermal spa resort built around natural hot springs in Lower Bavaria, where the line between wellness and medicine gets pleasantly blurry. Rooms lean modern-rustic with bathrooms that could pass for their own spa suites. Two restaurants cover Bavarian comfort and fine dining, so the health-first ethos stops short of making you eat sad food. The pools, saunas, and treatment facilities are comprehensive enough to fill several days without repeating yourself.

The timber-framed facade and ornamental turrets outside Dinkelsbühl make Meiser look like it's been standing since the medieval town next door was built, though the whole thing is considerably newer than it appears. Inside, exposed beams and stone fireplaces share space with contemporary lines, and rooms range from sleek to full country-house, with plaid sofas and knotty pine. The spa, with indoor and outdoor pools, is the real engine of the place, drawing guests who tend to stay for days rather than nights.

A cryotherapy chamber that drops to -85°C is either a selling point or a warning, depending on your constitution. This family-run Bavarian Forest resort has been building its reputation on generous scale and genuine hospitality, with 5,000 square meters of spa, seven themed saunas, and a 40,000-square-meter forest spa around a natural bathing lake. The kitchen leans regional, and a longevity program is on offer for guests with more structured goals than just lying down.

Teal velvet sofas against dark ceilings and warm timber: the Oswald family's adults-only hotel in the Bavarian Forest leans hard into moody design while keeping one foot in local materials. No restaurant, just a generous breakfast and a lifestyle bar for snacks and cocktails from midday. The Silberberg mine and the Risslochwasserfälle waterfalls are a short drive away for those who actually leave the building.

A business hotel on Hillmannplatz that manages to be genuinely comfortable without making a fuss about it. Rooms come with ergonomic desks and speedy room service for the weekday crowd, plus a playroom and cartoon-themed kids' rooms for families. Bremen's Town Hall and the old quarter are a short walk, and Beck's brewery tours are close enough to count as a local amenity.

A modern building grafted onto an old merchant's residence, which itself sits atop the ruins of the city wall, right on the Weser. This boutique hotel in Bremen goes full contemporary inside: monochrome in some rooms, earthy neutrals in others, classic modernist furniture, oversized black-and-white prints. The bathrooms open to the bedroom and border on decadent. The spa skips the Zen clichés for something darker and underground.

A two-level, 4,500-square-meter spa is the anchor here, with a Himalayan salt sauna, ice grotto, Turkish bath, and Kneipp pool covering most conceivable ways to sweat or shiver. This Baltic Sea resort also has beach access and all the sailing and surfing that comes with it, so the restless set has options. Rooms are bright and spacious, many with balcony views over the water, and the on-site Buddenbrooks holds a Michelin star if dinner calls for something serious.

A hotel in the middle of a small Bavarian city that somehow looks like it was designed in Stockholm and furnished in Milan. The Altmühltal Nature Park is right outside for hiking types, and the restaurant, Staderer, faces the old town and the river if you'd rather eat your way through the view. Bavarian warmth keeps everything grounded, even when the interiors are doing their best to forget which country they're in.

A German shipping magnate's half-timbered hilltop villa, built as a summer escape above the medieval village of Stolberg, is now a luxury spa hotel with direct access to Harz Mountains trails. Rooms split between sleek, marble-bathed modernity and wood-paneled historic character, while freestanding spa suites come with private Finnish saunas and outdoor whirlpool tubs. The kind of place where you arrive planning a short hike and leave three days later.

A natural spring on the property feeds the thermal pool, the saunas, and the steam baths, which sets the tone for this wellness resort in the Harz Mountains biosphere reserve. Rooms in the original lodge face a beech forest through oversized windows; the newer wing adds private terraces and custom art installations for anyone who wants their forest bathing with more square footage. Hikers and cyclists fill the trails outside; the restaurant keeps things local and seasonal.

All-apartment boutique hotel at the far eastern edge of Germany's Baltic coast, a short walk from the Polish border. Studios through three-bedroom units sit inside clean modernist structures that feel designed rather than assembled. The spa is full-featured, and the in-house restaurant, Braca, runs a Nordic-Mediterranean menu. Getting here takes commitment, which probably explains why the guests who do tend to stay a while.

Six themed saunas in a single wellness center is either a personality or a philosophy, and at A-ROSA it's both. This sprawling North Sea resort sits at the quiet northern tip of Sylt, the narrow island that has long served as Germany's answer to the Hamptons. The 3,500-square-meter spa anchors everything, with 18 sea-view treatment rooms and indoor-outdoor pools. Suites run classical-meets-modern, balconies facing the water, and bike rentals put 40 kilometers of dunes within reach.

A converted steelworks that now runs as a colorful, 100-room boutique hotel, the Altes Stahlwerk leans hard into its industrial bones while somehow also offering a spa where the old shop floor used to be. The two restaurants source from a local farm partnership, and the hotel sells those eggs, cheeses, and dairy in its own farm shop, which is a very specific personality to have. Neumünster is an industrial city, and this is a very good use of that fact.

A Neapolitan pizza oven hauled up from Naples anchors this small Braunschweig spot, which started life as an Italian deli selling cured meats and wine before pivoting into a proper pizzeria. The crust runs a little taller than classic Neapolitan, the dough gets a long natural fermentation, and the wine list leans into Lambrusco and Trentino. No reservations, so on warm evenings the aperitivo crowd spills outside. It landed on 50 Top Pizza Europe.

The neon sign outside reads "closed," which is either a joke or a filter, depending on how you look at it. This intimate cocktail bar on Brunnenstraße is serious enough that a queue forms anyway, coats go in the wardrobe (not over a chair), and nobody inside seems to mind the theater of getting in. The kind of place that makes Berlin feel like it invented the cocktail bar and let everyone else borrow the idea.

Neapolitan pizza in Munich, done without fuss or flourish. Calvello's keeps its focus on dough and recognizable flavors from the southern Italian tradition, the kind of soft, light crust that collapses gently rather than fighting back. The room is unfussy, the service easy-going enough to handle off-menu requests without breaking a sweat. It ranks among 50 Top Pizza Europe, which in a city not exactly known for Neapolitan pie is saying something.

A spa resort in Bad Wörishofen, the Bavarian town that essentially invented the European water cure, Der Sonnenhof spreads across several heritage buildings with rooms done in a comfortable contemporary-classic style. The spa is the main event, with pools, relaxation areas, and a treatment menu that runs from facials to something close to actual medicine. Dining ranges from Bavarian rustic to fine dining, depending on how formal you feel after a thermal soak.

A boutique hotel in a university town that had the audacity to hang Basquiat-inspired street art next to Moroccan tiles and bespoke Barcelona carpets, all inside a sleek brick building that looks perfectly composed from the outside. Rooms go the other direction, calm Nordic oak and upcycled luggage racks, with floor-to-ceiling soundproofed windows over a park. The rooftop has hammocks. Downstairs, the bar grows its cocktail ingredients on the back wall.

Right on Weimar's historic market square, this hotel takes its cultural neighborhood seriously, hosting monthly concerts, readings, and art festivals curated in-house. Rooms are named after former guests like Thomas Mann and Walter Gropius, and the Art Deco and Bauhaus interiors lean into the connection with steamer trunks, modular furniture, and original works by Georg Baselitz. The restaurant, AnnA, is where guests land after the show.

The front door is locked, buzzer required, reservation recommended, which is either thrilling or annoying depending on your mood. Le Lion is a serious cocktail bar in Hamburg with two rooms: a plush downstairs lounge where the bartenders work with quiet focus, and the Pine Room above, where the bar cuts through the center and guests literally walk through it to reach their seats. The performers are the point here, and they know it.

A Neapolitan pizza shop in Nuremberg that takes its southern Italian reference point seriously, with a menu that runs from straightforward classics to more inventive combinations. The dough is the thing here: well-proofed, balanced, holding its toppings without going slack. Buffalo mozzarella and proper tomatoes do the talking. 50 Top Pizza placed it among Europe's top pizzerias, which brings in the faithful from well beyond the neighborhood.

The highball glasses here are 220ml, which is basically a tall person's thimble, and that's the whole philosophy in miniature. The Boilerman is a dive bar in Eppendorf run by the same person behind the very formal Le Lion, and the contrast seems deliberate. Bottled beers, American whiskey, and those precise little highballs fill the menu. Neighborhood regulars and cocktail nerds occupy the same barstools without anyone making it weird.

The name is a pun on Harz, the national park wrapping around three sides of Braunlage, which sets the tone for a hotel that's quietly pleased with itself in the best way. Rooms lean minimalist and urban, with just enough rustic texture to remind you there's a forest outside. An upscale restaurant, a hip bar, and an outdoor cooking school keep the whole operation pointed toward people who actually came here to do something.

Exposed concrete, black steel, and oak floors carry an industrial aesthetic through every room category, from compact Pure doubles to L-shaped Lofts with kitchenettes. This design-forward hotel in Oldenburg sits in the Michelin Guide's selected hotels list and doubles as a neighborhood anchor through its Oh Honey restaurant, which pulls in locals for breakfast through dinner. A city that rarely appears on hotel shortlists turns out to have been holding out on everyone.

A converted manor house and barn on a sprawling Thuringian estate, with rooms done in rustic beams, four-poster beds, and antique furniture that took centuries to accumulate. The Freyraum Suite adds a fireplace, Finnish sauna, and private pool if you feel like going full landed gentry. Countryside views from every room, and the tavern restaurant pulls people in by the fire in winter for classic local cooking.

Half-timbered facade, red gabled roof, a still pond throwing the whole picture back at you: this forest hotel sits in a clearing near Kellerwald-Edersee National Park, and you won't stumble onto it by accident. Rooms have parquet floors, antiques, and private balconies; suites add fireplaces and timber beams. Breakfast runs on local honey, eggs, and goat cheese. The sauna house and natural swimming pond mean there's no particular reason to leave.

Every room faces the sea, which sets the tone for this adults-only wellness resort tucked into the dunes and pine forests of the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula. Sixty-five rooms and suites share the grounds with a cluster of traditional houses, some bookable whole. The spa runs from pools and saunas through to physiotherapy, and the kitchen leans Nordic, sourcing locally. No children, no noise, just the Baltic doing its thing outside your window.

Three low-slung buildings styled after an American roadside motel, sitting on the North Sea coast where the light does most of the decorating. Rooms run from doubles to family suites, many with balconies and dune or sea views, all done in bleached-out colors that look like the weather got there first. Breakfast is a buffet; the in-house restaurant handles lunch and dinner. There's a small spa with sauna if the wind off the Wadden Sea gets to be too much.

The honor bar runs on trust: you pour your own coffee or beer, and the tab sorts itself out later. Hotel Zweite Heimat is a boutique hotel just behind the dunes in Sankt Peter-Ording, a North Sea town Germans have been retreating to for beach walks and hot springs forever. Wide plank floors and a beach-house feel keep things unfussy, while rooms come with breakfast nooks and views of woods, sand, or a nearby lake.

Charcoal-and-white rooms that somehow look sharp even under the low Baltic light, this is a sleek modern hotel sitting in the middle of Binz, Rügen's old-school resort town. The contrast is the point: king beds, Baltic-facing balconies, a spa, a fine-dining restaurant, and a rooftop lounge, all delivered in a cool, controlled register that doesn't feel like it's trying to rattle anyone. The Maldives exist, yes, but the Baltic has its own argument.

Rügen is not Ibiza, and the AM Meer & Spa is clearly fine with that. This 60-room hotel sits on Binz's beachside promenade, almost every room angled toward Prorer Wiek Bay, most with a private deck for catching the sea air. The maritime theme is there, oak flooring patterned like driftwood, coral-shaped lamps, but applied lightly. A private beach is steps away, and a spa handles whatever the beach couldn't fix.

The "mozzarella" here is made from tapioca starch and coconut oil, which tells you everything about Gemello's approach. It's a vegan pizza shop in Prenzlauer Berg where the chef, a trained chemical engineer, makes every substitute from scratch: almond ricotta, miso-tofu feta, eggplant anchovy. The crust runs thin with a wide, airy edge and toppings that hold their shape. Carnivores reportedly stop asking questions after the first slice. Book ahead.

A small pizzeria in central Bamberg that earns its reputation on restraint: the dough is light, properly worked, and lets simple toppings do their job without any theater. The room feels easygoing rather than designed, the staff are warm without hovering, and the kitchen will improvise when you ask nicely. Come here when you want a good pizza and a genuinely unhurried table, not a story to tell about it.

A Neapolitan pizzeria on a quiet Düsseldorf street, run by someone who traveled the world and apparently set a Guinness record along the way before landing here. The menu splits pizzas into red and white, with stuffed options that earn their place alongside pasta and tiramisu. The room is put-together, the welcome is warm, and the whole operation takes its dough seriously enough to land on 50 Top Pizza Europe.