We visited a small part of Germany near the end of our first trip in 2002 when we crossed the Rhine from Colmar, France, to Frieburg and then went north to Mainz and Aachen before returning to the Netherlands.  On our trip in 2005 we decided to get to Germany in the beginning, entering at Aachen which is just across the border from Vaals in the Netherlands.  We then headed east with stops in Cologne, Frankfurt, Mainz, Leipzig and Berlin.  From Berlin we visited Dresden, took a side trip by train to Prague in the Czech Republic.  Our next stop was back west to Rothenburg, and we followed the so-called Romantic Road to Nordlingen andWurzburg before ending our sojourn in Germany with a stop in Munich.  After Munich we drove across Austria to Italy.  You can pick up our adventures there if you want to visit Italy by mouse.

 

But here you will be able to explore the aforementioned places by mouse.  We liked every city we visited in Germany.  I would say that we enjoyed Berlin the least, probably because our base there was a campground right in Berlin where our neighbors did not particularly care for us, and we returned the favor.  We will explain more about that on the "Visit Berlin by Mouse" pages. In general, we liked the southern parts of Germany better than the northern parts.  We found the people we encountered in the northen cities a bit cold and off-putting, while the southerners were much friendlier, as are southerners in the United States.

 

Germany was much damaged in World War II.  But reconstruction has been thorough and, in cities like Dresden and Frankfurt, it has seemingly been faithful to the original construction.  Most have pedestrian zones which makes it easy and pleasant to walk around.  And many of the places of historical significance remain, like the church in Liepzig in which Johann Sebastion Bach was employed, the huge Gothic cathedral in Cologne, and even remnants of the Berlin Wall.  Apparently Germans are very fond of bread, cakes and pastries. Every city has bakeries with extraordinay displays of all sorts of baked goods imaginable.  Bakeries exist in other European cities, too, but the ones we saw and entered in German cities seem like they are in a whole different league--even better than in Paris. 

 

We formed several more general impressions of Germany from our journey.  These are summed up in an excerpt from a letter we wrote from Munich at the end of our second trip.

 

Now, visit: Aachen   Cologne   Frankfurt    Mainz  Leipzig   Berlin   Historic places