The UNESCO 'Savoir vivre and sophistication' route begins in Frankfurt and runs along the Rhine, through romantic countryside whose beauty was appreciated as far back as Roman times. The route features magnificent castles, Charlemagne's cathedral and the Ruhr region, before returning to the Rhine and finishing in Düsseldorf, a shopper's paradise and one of Germany's most creative cities.
UNESCO World Heritage sites:
Other towns and cities worth seeing:
Length: approx. 600km
Starts: Frankfurt
Ends: Düsseldorf
Duration: 4 days
Recommended overnight stays: Koblenz, Cologne, Düsseldorf
"The sea is not a landscape. It is an experience of eternity," as the writer and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann once said – and his words ring true on the UNESCO 'Natural wonders and proud towns & cities' route. Natural features, including coastal mudflats and unspoilt beech forests, are interspersed with ancient Hanseatic towns and cities such as Bremen, Lübeck, Wismar and Stralsund.
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The UNESCO 'Palaces and parks' route starts and finishes in Leipzig. The heritage sites in between are reminders of a German past that lives on in sumptuous palaces and enchanting landscaped parks – not forgetting Dresden, the beautiful state capital of Saxony known as 'Florence on the Elbe'.
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What do Remagen, Bonn, Cologne, Neuss, Krefeld and Xanten have in common? These six German towns originated from Roman settlements in Germania around 2,000 years ago. They are situated along the Lower German Limes, the border wall along the Rhine that was intended to protect Roman-occupied territories against neighbouring unoccupied Germania. This 400-kilometre-long section of the ancient border fortifications of Germany and the Netherlands, with the remains of legionary camps, forts, harbours, aqueducts and temples, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2021.